Modern and Ancient Literary Criticism of The Gospels Continuing The Debate On Gospel Genres (Wissenschaftliche Untersuchungen. (Robert Matthew Calhoun (Editor) Etc.) (Z-Library)

Wissenschaftliche Untersuchungen
zum Neuen Testament
Herausgeber/Editor
Jörg Frey (Zürich)
Mitherausgeber/Associate Editors
Markus Bockmuehl (Oxford) ∙ James A. Kelhoffer (Uppsala)
Tobias Nicklas (Regensburg) ∙ Janet Spittler (Charlottesville, VA)
J. Ross Wagner (Durham, NC)
451
Modern and Ancient Literary
Criticism of the Gospels
Continuing the Debate on Gospel Genre(s)
Edited by
Robert Matthew Calhoun, David P. Moessner,
and Tobias Nicklas
Mohr Siebeck
Robert Matthew Calhoun, born 1971; 2011 Ph.D. in New Testament and Early Christian Lit-
erature from the University of Chicago; since 2016 Research Assistant to the A. A. Bradford
Chair, Texas Christian University.
orcid.org/0000-0001-5056-2050
David P. Moessner, 1983 Dr. theol., University of Basel (Switzerland); since 2008 Honor-
ary Research Associate in the Faculty of Theology, University of Pretoria (South Africa);
since 2010 Faculty Associate in New Testament, Radboud University (Nijmegen, the Nether-
lands); since 2012 A. A. Bradford Chair and Professor of Religion, Texas Christian University
(Fort Worth, Texas, USA); since 2019 Senior Fellow of the ‘Centre for Advanced Studies’
(Regensburg, Germany).
Tobias Nicklas, born 1967; 2000 Promotion; 2004 Habilitation; since 2007 Professor of New
Testament at Universität Regensburg (Germany); Research Associate at the Department of
New Testament, University of the Free State, Bloemfontein (South Africa); since 2018 Direc-
tor of the Centre for Advanced Studies “Beyond Canon,” Universität Regensburg (Germany);
since 2019 Adjunct Ordinary Professor at the Catholic University of America (Washington,
District of Columbia, USA).
orcid.org/0000-0002-1021-6994
ISBN 978-3-16-159413-7 / eISBN 978-3-16-159414-4

DOI 10.1628/978-3-16-159414-4
ISSN 0512-1604 / eISSN 2568-7476
(Wissenschaftliche Untersuchungen zum Neuen Testament)
The Deutsche Nationalbibliothek lists this publication in the Deutsche Nationalbibliogra-
phie; detailed bibliographic data are available at http://dnb.dnb.de.
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Preface and Acknowledgments
The present volume originated in a conference held at Texas Christian Univer-

sity (Fort Worth, Texas) on November 14 and 15, 2018, which was sponsored
jointly by TCU’s AddRan College of Liberal Arts and the Department of Religion
in collaboration with the A. A. Bradford Chair of Religion, titled “The Gospels
and Ancient Literary Criticism: Continuing the Debate on Gospel Genre(s).”
A conference volume of this magnitude with a diverse group of scholars from
more than ten countries does not come together without the special expertise
and support of administrators and staff who went beyond the normal ‘calls of
duty’ to provide top notch facilities with special amenities, all infused with invit-
ing hospitality. We especially thank the Dean of the AddRan College, Prof. An-
drew Schoolmaster; the past and present Chairs of the Department of Religion,
Profs. Nadia Lahutsky and Sage Elwell, respectively, together with Laurie Loken,
Administrative Assistant of the Department of Religion; and the event planners
and colleagues of TCU’s Brown-Lupton University Union for their extra effort
to make our conference a most memorable experience.
The editors wish to thank the scholars whose essays appear herein, as well
as several others who presented papers or were respondents in the conference:
Profs. Helen K. Bond, M. Eugene Boring, Patricia A. Duncan, Shelly A. Mat-
thews, Edward J. McMahon II, Mikeal C. Parsons, Todd D. Still, Johan C. Thom,
and Trevor W. Thompson. We are also grateful for the help provided by our stu-
dent assistant, Paige Easley. We are grateful as well to the National Library of
Greece in Athens for permission to use images from Cod. gr. 151 (GA 758, ff. 88v
and 143v), and for beautiful reproductions of the same.
Finally, we thank Prof. Dr. Jörg Frey and the associate editors of Wissenschaft-
liche Untersuchungen zum Neuen Testament for including our volume in this
illustrious series, as well as Katharina Gutekunst, Elena Müller, Tobias Stäbler,
Tobias Weiß, and their associates at Mohr Siebeck for their expert production.
David P. Moessner
Tobias Nicklas
Robert Matthew Calhoun
Table of Contents
Preface and Acknowledgements . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . V

List of Abbreviations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . XI
David P. Moessner, Tobias Nicklas, and Robert Matthew Calhoun

Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1
Part One
The Question of Genre and the Gospels
Richard A. Burridge
The Gospels and Ancient Biography: 25 Years On, 1993–2018 . . . . . . . . . . . 9
Werner H. Kelber
On “Mastering the Genre” . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 57
Michal Beth Dinkler

What Is a Genre? Contemporary Genre Theory and the Gospels . . . . . . . . . 77
Elizabeth E. Shively
A Critique of Richard Burridge’s Genre Theory: From a
One-Dimensional to a Multi-Dimensional Approach to Gospel Genre . . . . 97
Carl Johan Berglund

The Genre(s) of the Gospels: Expectations from the Second Century . . . . . 113
Sandra Huebenthal
What’s Form Got to Do with It? Preliminaries on the Impact of
Social Memory Theory for the Study of Biblical Intertextuality . . . . . . . . . . . 145
Part Two
Mark as Narrative in the Light of Ancient and Modern Criticism
Cilliers Breytenbach
The Gospel according to Mark:
The Yardstick for Comparing the Gospels with Ancient Texts . . . . . . . . . . . . 179
VIII Table of Contents
Margaret M. Mitchell
Mark, the Long-Form Pauline εὐαγγέλιον . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 201
Stefan Alkier
Das Markusevangelium als Tragikomödie lesen . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 219
David P. Moessner
Mark’s Mysterious ‘Beginning’ (1:1–3) as the Hermeneutical Code
to Mark’s ‘Messianic Secret’ . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 243
C. Clifton Black
The Kijé Effect: Revenants in the Markan Passion Narrative . . . . . . . . . . . . . 273
Justin Marc Smith

Famous (or Not So Famous) Last Words: Last and Dying Words
in Greco-Roman Biography and Mark 15:34 Revisited . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 307
Geert Van Oyen

Actio according to Quintilian (Institutio oratoria 11.3) and the
Performance of the Gospel of Mark . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 335
Part Three
The Growth of the Gospel Tradition
in Early Christian Literary Culture
R. Alan Culpepper
The Foundations of Matthean Ethics . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 359
Wolfgang Grünstäudl
Continuity and Discontinuity in Luke’s Gospel:
Luke 9:51 and the Pre-Jerusalem Phase as a Test Case . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 381
John A. Darr
Reading Luke-Acts as Scriptural History and Philosophical Biography:
A Pragmatic Approach to Lukan Intertextuality and Genre . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 397
Thomas R. Hatina
Intertextual Transformations of Jesus: John as Mnemomyth . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 417
Paul N. Anderson
Revelation and Rhetoric in John 9:1–10:21:
Two Dialogical Modes Operative within the Johannine Narrative . . . . . . . . 441
Table of Contents IX
Tobias Nicklas
Second-Century Gospels as “Re-Enactments” of Earlier Writings:
Examples from the Gospel of Peter . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 471
List of Contributors . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 487
General Bibliography . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 489
Index of References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 541

Index of Modern Authors . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 571
Index of Subjects . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 585
List of Abbreviations
AB (AYB) Anchor (Yale) Bible

ABRL (AYBRL)
Anchor (Yale) Bible Reference Library
AcBib Academia Biblica
AcT Acta Theologica
AJEC Ancient Judaism and Early Christianity
AJP American Journal of Philology
AmJT American Journal of Theology
AnBib Analecta Biblica
ANE Ancient Near East
ANRW H. Temporini and W. Haase, eds., Aufstieg und Niedergang der
römischen Welt: Geschichte und Kultur Roms im Spiegel der neueren
Forschung (Berlin: De Gruyter, 1972–)
ANTC Abingdon New Testament Commentaries
ASE Annali di storia dell’esegesi
ATANT Abhandlungen zur Theologie des Alten und Neuen Testaments
AThR Anglican Theological Review
ATLAMS American Theological Library Association Monograph Series
BAR Biblical Archaeology Review
BBB Bonner biblische Beiträge
BECNT Baker Exegetical Commentary on the New Testament
BETL Bibliotheca Ephemeridum Theologicarum Lovaniensium
BEvT Beiträge zur evangelischen Theologie
BHT Beiträge zur historischen Theologie
Bib Biblica
BibInt Biblical Interpretation
BibInt Biblical Interpretation Series
BibSem The Biblical Seminar
BICS Bulletin of the Institute of Classical Studies
BMSSEC Baylor Mohr Siebeck Studies in Early Christianity
BNTC Black’s New Testament Commentaries
BPC Biblical Performance Criticism
BSGRT Bibliotheca Scriptorum Graecorum et Romanorum Teubneriana
BSNA Biblical Scholarship in North America
BTB Biblical Theology Bulletin
BThS Biblisch-theologische Schwerpunkte
BThSt Biblisch-theologische Studien
BTS Biblical Tools and Studies
Budé Collection des universités de France, publiée sous le patronage de
l’Association Guillaume Budé
BWANT Beiträge zur Wissenschaft vom Alten und Neuen Testament
BZ Biblische Zeitschrift
XII List of Abbreviations
BZNW Beihefte zur Zeitschrift für die neutestamentliche Wissenschaft

CBET Contributions to Biblical Exegesis and Theology
CBNT Commentaire biblique, Nouveau Testament
CBQ Catholic Biblical Quarterly
CC Continental Commentaries
CCSA Corpus Christianorum: Series Apocryphorum
ClQ Classical Quarterly
CurBR Currents in Biblical Research
CurTM Currents in Theology and Mission
DSD Dead Sea Discoveries
EC Early Christianity
ECC Eerdmans Critical Commentary
ECCA Early Christianity in the Context of Antiquity
ECL Early Christianity and Its Literature
EDEJ J.J. Collins and D. C. Harlow, eds., The Eerdmans Dictionary of Early
Judaism (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 2010)
EdF Erträge der Forschung
EKKNT Evangelisch-katholischer Kommentar zum Neuen Testament
ETL Ephemerides Theologicae Lovanienses
EvT Evangelische Theologie
FAT Forschungen zum Alten Testament
FB Forschung zur Bibel
FBBS Facet Books, Biblical Series
FF Foundations and Facets
FIOTL Formation and Interpretation of Old Testament Literature
FO Folia Orientalia
FRLANT Forschungen zur Religion und Literatur des Alten und Neuen Tes-
taments
FZPhTh Freiburger Zeitschrift für Philosophie und Theologie
GA Gregory-Aland (manuscript reference numeration)
GCS Die griechischen christlichen Schriftsteller der ersten Jahrhunderte
HB Hebrew Bible
HBT Horizons in Biblical Theology
HNT Handbuch zum Neuen Testament
HTKNT Herders theologischer Kommentar zum Neuen Testament
HTR Harvard Theological Review
IBC Interpretation: A Bible Commentary for Teaching and Preaching
ICC International Critical Commentary on the Holy Scriptures of the Old
and New Testaments
Int Interpretation
ITQ Irish Theological Quarterly
JAAR Journal of the American Academy of Religion
JAJSup Supplements to Journal of Ancient Judaism
JBL Journal of Biblical Literature
JGRChJ Journal of Greco-Roman Christianity and Judaism
JHS Journal of Hellenic Studies
JJS Journal of Jewish Studies
JohMS Johannine Monograph Series
List of Abbreviations XIII
JQR Jewish Quarterly Review
JR Journal of Religion
JRS Journal of Roman Studies
JSHJ Journal for the Study of the Historical Jesus
JSJSup Journal for the Study of Judaism Supplement Series
JSNT Journal for the Study of the New Testament
JSNTSup Journal for the Study of the New Testament Supplement Series
JSPSup Journal for the Study of the Pseudepigrapha Supplement Series
JTS Journal of Theological Studies
KAL Kommentare zur Apokryphen Literatur
KEK Kritisch-exegetischer Kommentar über das Neue Testament (Meyer-
Kommentar)
KJV King James Version
LASBF Liber Annuus Studii Biblici Franciscani
LCL Loeb Classical Library
LEC Library of Early Christianity
LHBOTS Library of Hebrew Bible / Old Testament Studies
LNTS Library of New Testament Studies
LXX Septuagint
MnemSup Supplements to Mnemosyne
MNTC Moffatt New Testament Commentary
MT Masoretic Text
NA27, NA28 B. Aland, et al., eds., Novum Testamentum Graece, 27th ed. (Stuttgart:
Deutsche Bibelgesellschaft, 1993); rev. (1998); 28th ed. (2012)
NCB New Century Bible
NCBC New Cambridge Bible Commentary
NEchtB Neue Echter Bibel
Neot Neotestamentica
NET Neutestamentliche Entwürfe zur Theologie
NHS Nag Hammadi Studies
NICNT New International Commentary on the New Testament
NIGTC New International Greek Testament Commentary
NovT Novum Testamentum
NovTSup Supplements to Novum Testamentum
NPNF1 P. Schaff, ed., A Select Library of the Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers of
the Christian Church, repr., 14 vols. (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans,
1956)
NRSV New Revised Standard Version
NT New Testament
NTGF New Testament in the Greek Fathers
NTL New Testament Library
NTOA Novum Testamentum et Orbis Antiquus
NTS New Testament Studies
NTSI New Testament and the Scriptures of Israel
OCT Oxford Classical Texts (Scriptorum classicorum bibliotheca Oxonien-
sis)
OECGT Oxford Early Christian Gospel Texts
OED Oxford English Dictionary, https://www.oed.com
XIV List of Abbreviations
OSJCB Osnabrücker Studien zur Jüdischen und Christlichen Bibel

OT Old Testament
OTL Old Testament Library
PhA Philosophia Antiqua
PG J.‑P. Migne, ed., Patrologiae cursus completus: Series graeca, 162 vols.
(Paris, 1857–1886)
PHSC Perspectives on Hebrew Scriptures and Its Contexts
PIBA Proceedings of the Irish Biblical Association
PillarNTC Pillar New Testament Commentary
PMLA Proceedings of the Modern Language Association
PRSt Perspectives in Religious Studies
RAC T. Klauser, et al., eds., Reallexikon für Antike und Christentum
( Tübingen: Hiersemann, 1950–)
RB Revue biblique
RBS Resources for Biblical Study
RCT Revista catalana de teología
RGG3 K. Galling, et al., eds., Die Religion in Geschichte und Gegenwart:
Handwörterbuch für Theologie und Religionswissenschaft, 3rd ed., 7
vols. (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 1957–1965)
RSV Revised Standard Version
SAAA Studies on the Apocryphal Acts of the Apostles
SANt Studia Aarhusiana Neotestamentica
SBB Stuttgarter biblische Beiträge
SBL Society of Biblical Literature
SBLDS Society of Biblical Literature Disseration Series
SBLGNT M.W. Holmes, ed., The Greek New Testament: SBL Edition (Atlanta:
SBL, 2010)
SBLMS Society of Biblical Literature Monograph Series
SBLSBS Society of Biblical Literature Sources for Biblical Study
SBS Stuttgarter Bibelstudien
SBT Studies in Biblical Theology
SC Sources chrétiennes
SDSSRL Studies in the Dead Sea Scrolls and Related Literature
SemeiaSt Semeia Studies
SGRR Studies in Greek and Roman Religion
SHBC Smyth & Helwys Bible Commentary
SJLA Studies in Judaism in Late Antiquity
SJT Scottish Journal of Theology
SNTI Studies in New Testament Interpretation
SNTS Society for New Testament Studies / Studiorum Novi Testamenti
Societas
SNTSMS Society for New Testament Studies Monograph Series
SNTW Studies of the New Testament and Its World
SP Sacra Pagina
SR Studies in Religion / Sciences Religieuses
SSEJC Studies in Scripture in Early Judaism and Christianity
STAC Studien und Texte zu Antike und Christentum
STDJ Studies on the Texts of the Desert of Judah
List of Abbreviations XV
SwJT Southwestern Journal of Theology
SymS Symposium Series
TANZ Texte und Arbeiten zum neutestamentlichen Zeitalter
TBN Themes in Biblical Narrative
TENTS Texts and Editions for New Testament Study
THGNT D. Jongkind, et al., eds., The Greek New Testament Produced at
Tyndale House, Cambridge (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press;
Wheaton, IL: Crossway, 2017)
ThH Théologie historique
ThTo Theology Today
TLZ Theologische Literaturzeitung
TS Texts and Studies
TSK Theologische Studien und Kritiken
TUGAL Texte und Untersuchungen zur Geschichte der altchristlichen Litera-
tur
TUMSR Trinity University Monograph Series in Religion
UTB Uni-Taschenbücher
VCSup Supplements to Vigiliae Christianae
VTSup Supplements to Vetus Testamentum
WBC Word Biblical Commentary
WD Wort und Dienst
WTJ Westminster Theological Journal
ZAC Zeitschrift für Antikes Christentum
ZNT Zeitschrift für Neues Testament
ZNW Zeitschrift für die neutestamentliche Wissenschaft und die Kunde der
älteren Kirche
Introduction
David P. Moessner, Tobias Nicklas,
and Robert Matthew Calhoun
The present collection of studies focuses on the age-old problem of character-

izing the church’s Gospels as literature. As we were initially contemplating an
event and inquiring with friends and colleagues, we became aware that Richard
A. Burridge’s influential study, What Are the Gospels?, remarkably would soon
be appearing in a 3rd edition, marking its 25th anniversary.1 This seemed like
an auspicious moment to invite scholars working on the Gospels to deliberate
together whether the question of genre had finally been settled or whether some
alternative or even new approaches were showing promise in elucidating their
literary character as a group. It should be clear at once from the table of con-
tents that the vision of a conference (held in November 2018 at Texas Christian
University) and a volume representing a wide range of perspectives has been
realized. Several contributors travel far beyond the boundaries of “literary
criticism,” as traditionally understood.2 Furthermore, the controversy no longer
turns only on which genre best fits the (canonical) Gospels,3 but also on whether
‘genre’ is a suitable interpretive instrument for this literature at all.
The essays’ diversity of methods and conclusions meant that ascertaining
the optimal organization (τάξις) for the volume would be rather challenging.
The editors ultimately adopted a straightforward topical arrangement. Part one,
“The Question of Genre and the Gospels,” focuses on the literary character of
the Gospels as a group, particularly in relation to genre theory. Unsurprisingly,
many contributors turned to Mark – for most the earliest extant written narrative
Gospel – as a point of entry into the problem; we gathered these into part two,
“Mark as Narrative in the Light of Ancient and Modern Literary Criticism.” Part
three, “The Growth of the Gospel Tradition in Early Christian Literary Culture,”
1 R. A. Burridge, What Are the Gospels? A Comparison with Graeco-Roman Biography, 3rd
ed. (Waco, TX: Baylor University Press, 2018). The new edition was likewise feted at a joint
session of several program units at the Annual Meeting of the Society of Biblical Literature in
Denver, CO, on November 17, 2018.
2 As exemplified, for example, in the still-essential collection of sources in D. A. Russell
and M. Winterbottom, eds., Ancient Literary Criticism: The Principal Texts in New Translations
(Oxford: Clarendon, 1972).
3 The individual essays vary in their capitalization of “Gospel” or “gospel” (also “Synoptic”
or “synoptic,” etc.); the editors thought it best to let each contributor’s preferences stand.
2 David P. Moessner, Tobias Nicklas, and Robert Matthew Calhoun
assembles the essays that deal with Matthew, Luke (and Acts), John, and the
Gospel of Peter.
A central question did emerge, however, from the variety of perspectives pres-
ented during the two days of the conference. Richard Burridge’s keynote address,
“The Gospels and Ancient Biography: 25 Years On, 1993–2018” (9–56), con-
cisely surveys the course of scholarship over the two and a half decades since the
publication of the first edition of What Are the Gospels? in 1993. Relying mainly
on commentaries and major monographs, he narrates for each of the “big four”
Gospels the initial continuation of the earlier consensus (i. e., that they are sui
generis or otherwise not βίοι), then the stirrings of change inspired by his work,
and finally (after some resistance by the old guard) the triumph of his thesis
and the establishment of a new consensus, which younger scholars now presup-
pose “as a base line to develop new lines of research” (33).4 Burridge’s keynote
thus prompts the question: has scholarship across the international spectrum
in fact arrived at a broad agreement that the Gospels are βίοι? Many scholars
answer yes.5 But new stirrings in the last decade, especially in ancient ‘narrative’
(διήγησις) rhetorical criticism, reception and performance criticisms, ‘social
memory’ theory, and more recently in ‘genre’ criticism have added their voices
to the fray. As a reading of the essays collected here will make clear, the debate
continues, and it is heading in some very interesting directions.
We may mention first the contributors who use Burridge’s hypothesis as
a point of departure in the pursuit of fresh interpretive insights. In her forth-
coming monograph, Helen K. Bond observes according to the excerpts quoted
by Burridge (52) a “disappointingly meager” set of “practical results of the
identification of the gospels as bioi”6 – a deficiency she intends her book to
remedy. Several essays here abet that purpose. Justin Marc Smith (“Famous [or
Not So Famous] Last Words: Last and Dying Words in Greco-Roman Biography
and Mark 15:34,” 307–33) compares significant “last/dying words” of the sub-
jects of Greek and Roman biographical works alongside the account of Jesus’s
final utterance in Mark 15:34. R. Alan Culpepper (“The Foundations of Mat-
thean Ethics,” 359–79) examines “the intersection of three subjects,” namely
“the genre of the Gospels, the ethics of the Gospels, and the place of Matthew in
Jewish Christianity” (359). Within the Gospel as a biographical whole Matthew
offers a model for imitation as well as providing the rationale or warrants for
4 Burridge goes on to outline how his work has helped to transform scholarship in multiple
areas: (1) the audiences and social settings of the Gospels in early Christianity; (2) the genre of
Acts; (3) Roman Catholic reactions to his monograph; and (4) further implications of his study
for theological and historical research.
5 E. g., in this volume, J. M. Smith (307–33).
6 H. K. Bond, The First Biography of Jesus: Genre and Meaning in Mark’s Gospel (Grand
Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 2020). Bond offered similar statements in her presentation at the con-
ference (“What Difference Does It Make to Say That Mark Is a Bios?”). See also now eadem, “A
Fitting End? Self-Denial and a Slave’s Death in Mark’s Life of Jesus,” NTS 65 (2019): 425–42.
Introduction 3
ethical behavior (360). John A. Darr (“Reading Luke-Acts as Scriptural History

and Philosophical Biography: A Pragmatic Approach to Lukan Intertextuality
and Genre,” 397–416) sets out to refine the notion, accepted by many, that
Luke-Acts combines historiography and biography: he argues that Luke and
Acts together comprise a foundation narrative blending “Jewish scriptural his-
toriography and Greco-Roman intellectual biography,” in order to “establish,
define, reinforce, promulgate, and defend group identity” (400). Finally, Paul
N. Anderson (“Revelation and Rhetoric in John 9:1–10:21: Two Dialogical
Modes Operative within the Johannine Narrative,” 441–70) regards βίος as
working in tandem with “Johannine dialogism” which has theological, historical,
and literary dimensions, and which furthermore has revelatory and rhetorical
modes. Viewing these aspects together “may indeed shed light upon the ministry
of Jesus as conveyed within the Johannine tradition” (442).
One will notice at once that these studies that perceive Mark, Matthew, Luke-
Acts, and John as biography or biographical do not engage the most contentious
of Burridge’s claims, i. e., that all of the Gospels are βίοι, and that, generically
speaking, εὐαγγέλιον is βίος. Several contributors challenge these claims di-
rectly and at the same level of generality, beginning with Werner Kelber (“On
‘Mastering the Genre,’” 57–76), who homes in on Burridge’s assertion that
mastery of the genre is required for correct interpretation. Kelber scrutinizes
this assertion from three points of view: genre (pointing out that its flexibility,
rightly emphasized by Burridge, sabotages its interpretive primacy); narrative
(arguing that the Gospels’ narrative character supersedes genre); and history
(noting that oral-scribal communication practices mean, practically, that texts
were pluriform and unstable, with significant yet unconsidered implications for
genre). Michal Beth Dinkler (“What Is a Genre? Contemporary Genre Theory
and the Gospels,” 77–96) proposes “that we shift from considering genre
in terms of classification to seeing genre as a dynamic, dialogical mode of com-
munication” (78). Dinkler gives a brief, incisive overview of the evolution
occurring among genre theorists from classificatory approaches to functional
models. She concludes by describing the Gospels as “ancient rhetorically-shaped
narratives that claim to be reliable records of recent events” (92). Elizabeth
E. Shively (“A Critique of Richard Burridge’s Genre Theory: From a One-Di-
mensional to a Multi-Dimensional Approach to Gospel Genre,” 97–112) ag-
rees with Dinkler that Burridge’s hypothesis is overdue for critical scrutiny. She
urges, in light of more recent developments in genre theory, “the integration of
a rhetorical dimension (genre as typified action), a cognitive dimension (genre
as schemata/mental structure), and a literary dimension (genre as formal and
thematic structure)” (108). Carl Johan Berglund (“The Genre[s] of the Gospels:
Expectations from the Second Century,” 113–44) observes that Burridge con-
stitutes the resemblances between Gospels and βίοι, discovered through his
comparative procedures, as a set of expectations to guide interpretation – but
without testing and confirming this hypothesis by examination of the Gospels’

early reception. Berglund turns to three 2nd-c. sources (part of the Acts of John,
Clement’s Protrepticus, and Heracleon’s hypomnēmata on the Gospel of John) to
demonstrate the perception of multiple genres in the Gospels: “ancient historiog-
raphy, Christian proclamation, Jewish-Christian prophetic writings, and ancient
biography” (113). Cilliers Breytenbach (“The Gospel according to Mark: The
Yardstick for Comparing the Gospels with Ancient Texts,” 179–200), notes
that “there are still many researchers who do not subscribe to the thesis that
Mark is a biography” (180), then lays out the differences between analytic and
illustrative modes of comparison. The latter compares (presumably) similar
texts in order to construct the type to which the two belong. The analytic mode,
meanwhile, juxtaposes “equivalent units” (involving three terms: x resembles y
with respect to z) toward the construction of explanatory generalizations. In the
place of the illustrative mode employed by Burridge, Breytenbach performs pre-
liminary analytic comparisons of Mark with a range of ancient texts, concluding
that the former should be considered foremost as an episodic narrative. “[T]he
genealogical relationship between Mark and narrative genres contemporary to
the time of the gospel” should be left aside, pending the results of “substantial”
analytic comparisons” (199–200).
The remaining studies offer proposals for how to understand what the Gos-
pels are and are doing, as a group or individually, apart from the βίος-hypothesis.
David P. Moessner (“Mark’s Mysterious ‘Beginning’ [1:1–3] as the Hermeneutical
Code to Mark’s ‘Messianic Secret,’” 243–71) and Margaret M. Mitchell (“Mark,
the Long-Form Pauline εὐαγγέλιον,” 201–17) argue that Mark designs his
Gospel to have a flexible yet integral relationship with other bodies of literature.
Moessner points out that the opening verses of Mark’s Gospel pose questions
concerning how the passages quoted in 1:2–3 might connect with the characters
who promptly appear (John the Baptist and Jesus), as well as the relationship
between the quoted passages’ source, “Isaiah” (as v. 2 says, but also Exodus and
Malachi) and the narrative which follows. Moessner argues that the ἀρχὴ τοῦ
εὐαγγελίου formulates an epitome of “Moses and the prophets” through the
register of the plot of Second Isaiah that Mark’s “gospel” will unfold as the “mes-
sianic secret” in Jesus of Nazareth. According to Mitchell, meanwhile, the evan-
gelist Mark “not only transformed an oral [Pauline] kerygma (εὐαγγέλιον) into
writing, but he transferred a set of maverick claims for mediated Christophanies
in words, in body, in rituals of baptism and thanksgiving meal, in ethics, and in
… community – that were characteristic of the Pauline Gentile Christ-believing
mission – into long-hand narrative form” (207). In other words, Mark expands
the tightly compressed synecdochic summaries of τὸ εὐαγγέλιον into a full epi-
sodic narrative.
The idea of the Gospels as performed texts animates the contributions of
Geert Van Oyen (“Actio according to Quintilian [Institutio oratoria 11.3] and the
Introduction 5
Performance of the Gospel of Mark,” 335–56) and Tobias Nicklas (“Second-

Century Gospels as ‘Re-Enactments’ of Earlier Writings: Examples from the
Gospel of Peter,” 471–85). Van Oyen studies Mark’s performative features in
the light of Quintilian’s pedagogical theory regarding delivery (actio), one of a
small handful of extant rhetorical-theoretical passages dealing with this topic, in
order to build bridges between past-oriented (historical) and present-oriented
(reader-response, narratological, “applied”) research methodologies. Nicklas
has formulated a hypothesis on the growth of the Gospel tradition that he calls
“re-enactment” (Neueinszenierung), i. e., the emergence of new Gospels through
the re-staging of the story for new audiences – from memory, not from written
sources lying open on a redactor’s desk. Nicklas deploys this model here to illus-
trate how the Gospel of Peter can maintain fidelity to its precursors (particularly
in the overall structure of the narrative) while departing from them strikingly in
numerous details.
The next pair of contributors assess the impact of social memory theory on
our understandings of the Gospels. Sandra Huebenthal (“What’s Form Got to
Do with It? Preliminaries on the Impact of Social Memory Theory for the Study
of Biblical Intertextuality,” 145–76) sharply criticizes the ways historical-critical
scholars tend to investigate intertextuality (e. g., as promise and fulfillment). In-
tertextuality needs instead, she argues, to analyze (a) how tradition and identity
are negotiated and adapt to new situations; (b) how cultural memory is used to
create meaning; and (c) how both (a) and (b) change over time (154). Thomas
R. Hatina (“Intertextual Transformations of Jesus: John as Mnemomyth,”
417–40) begins by noting the correlation between the view of the Gospel of
John as “preserving content from the actual past” (417) and the determination
of the Gospel’s genre as βίος. He challenges both premises with a study of “how
the identity of Jesus is constructed through a process of social commemoration
and ideological mythmaking within the medium of narrative” (418).
The remaining three essays address the literary craftsmanship of the evange-
lists. While these studies may go beyond the strictures of overall form or genre,
they underscore afresh that whatever else the Gospels may be, they are not simple
repositories of traditional material, as the form critics of previous generations
of scholars often assumed. Stefan Alkier (“Das Markusevangelium als Tragiko-
mödie lesen,” 219–42) inquires why a text that refers to “good news” in its open-
ing line does not have a euphoric conclusion, but instead tells of women who
are silent because of their fear. Alkier proposes that Mark 1:1–15:46 is tragic,
and 15:47–16:8 is comedic. In the tragic part, the euphoric arrival and initial
reception of Jesus encounter dysphoric responses and actions, culminating in his
execution. The comedic part begins with the dysphoric image of the women at
the tomb, yet points the readers toward a euphoric acceptance of the angel’s an-
nouncement of the resurrection. C. Clifton Black (“The Kijé Effect: Revenants
in the Markan Passion Narrative,” 273–305) examines a phenomenon he
labels the “Kijé effect,” the ghostly reappearance of figures in Mark’s passion
account from earlier in the Gospel’s story. Black amasses the evidence of such
“revenants” carefully, and concludes by probing whether other ancient authors
employ similar techniques. Wolfgang Grünstäudl (“Continuity and Discontinu-
ity in Luke’s Gospel: Luke 9:51 and the Pre-Jerusalem Phase as a Test Case,”
381–96) urges the re-evaluation of the Lukan “travel narrative,” which scholars
typically regard as beginning in 9:51. Grünstäudl argues instead that the doubled
narratives of Jesus sending out his followers in 9:1–6, 10 and 10:1–20 open up
a “room of repetition” which closes in 22:35–36, and that 9:51 inaugurates the
“pre-Jerusalem phase” of the Gospel.
In conclusion, we, the editors, acknowledge how illuminating as a whole
Burridge’s βίος theory has been in focusing the shape of Jesus of Nazareth in the
larger portraits of each of the canonical Gospels. At the same time, we recognize
that the new voices and fresh approaches do fill in some of the empty spaces with
critical pieces in the ‘puzzle’ that point in directions away from βίος in depicting
the literary character of the four Gospels. The puzzle remains unsolved – a
continuing challenge for our contributors, and inviting prospect, we hope, for
our readers as well.
Part One
The Question of Genre and the Gospels

The Gospels and Ancient Biography
25 Years On, 1993–20181
Richard A. Burridge
Burridge’s work was rapidly seen as highly significant, not to say game-
changing, in understanding the genre of the Gospels, and his conclusions
were widely accepted. This sea change in scholarship is Burridge’s major
contribution to the scholarly world. Steve Walton2
Richard Burridge has set an agenda that will provide decades of work for
biblical scholars, historians, and theologians. Ian Markham3
It seems incredible that it is twenty-five years since my revised doctoral thesis

was first published in the SNTS Monograph Series,4 and some thirty-five years
since I began research into the genre of the gospels. I am pleased and privileged
by the opportunity to open this conference, “The Gospels and Ancient Literary
Criticism: Continuing the Debate on Gospel Genre(s)” with an attempt to sum-
marize my critical review of gospel scholarship since 2000, particularly those
scholars and books which have paid me the honor of interacting with my work,
and those who more recently have started to develop new avenues of interesting
research.
By the time the second edition appeared, a “sea-change” about the genre of
the gospels had clearly happened,5 and the biographical hypothesis had become
1 This paper summarizes my “Gospels and Biography, 2000–2018: A Critical Review and
Implications for Future Research,” in idem, What Are the Gospels? A Comparison with Graeco-
Roman Biography, 3rd ed. (Waco, TX: Baylor University Press, 2018), I.1–I.112. I am grateful
to Baylor and especially to Dr. Carey Newman for permission to use this material here.
2 “What Are the Gospels? Richard Burridge’s Impact on Scholarly Understanding of the
Genre of the Gospels,” CurBR 14/1 (2015): 81–93, 86–87; repr. in Biographies and Jesus: What
Does It Mean for the Gospels to Be Biographies?, ed. C. S. Keener and E. T. Wright (Lexington,
KY: Emeth Press, 2016), 47–57, 52.
3 “Richard Burridge’s Achievement,” First Things (January 2014): 22–24, 24.
4 What Are the Gospels? A Comparison with Graeco-Roman Biography, SNTSMS 70 (Cam-
bridge: Cambridge University Press, 1992). (The paperback appeared in 1995.)
5 “This book may produce a sea-change in the problem of the genre of the Gospels. Whether
it produces a sea-change in contemporary interpretations of the Gospels remains to be seen”
(C. A. Tuckett, review of What Are the Gospels?, by R. A. Burridge, Theology 96/769 [January
1993]: 74–75).
10 Richard A. Burridge
accepted as the new scholarly consensus, as Steve Walton’s review makes clear.
However, in literary or theological studies, no less than in the wider humanities,
or indeed in the sciences, the proof of an hypothesis is not only when other
scholars repeat or agree with the original research, but more importantly, when
it begins to be assumed and taken for granted to be used as a basis for further
profitable lines of new research, as suggested by Ian Markham’s quotation above,
which also addresses Tuckett’s second point, about whether this work would
produce “a sea-change in contemporary interpretations of the Gospels.” This
paper builds upon the second edition’s review of the 1990s6 by looking partic-
ularly at new research and publications which have appeared since 2000, both
significant commentaries which have been published in the last two decades,
but also several areas where the biographical hypothesis has had a significant
impact, namely, the social setting and audience of the gospels for specific com-
munities or “all Christians,” the genre of the book of Acts, the interest in the
biographical genre among Roman Catholic biblical scholars, the relationship of
ancient biography with historiography, and finally some new avenues of research
about the interpretation of the gospels, both theological and historical.
A. The Literary Theory of Genre
First, however, we must note that our account of the literary theory of genres
continues to have significant implications for gospel studies, which some
scholars have appreciated and utilized well, while others still fail to take this
into account – particularly with regard to the distinction between genres (as
represented by nouns, biography, history, tragedy, etc.) and the level of modes
(as adjectives such as tragic, biographical, etc.), as well as our discussion of
Alastair Fowler’s model of genres’ origins, life, development, and death or trans-
mogrification into other, newer genres.7 Equally, it is important to stress that
our research into the “family resemblance” between the gospels and ancient bioi
was based on a whole range of some nineteen different generic features which
indicate a work’s genre, including both “external” features of form and structure
as well as “internal” features of content.8 Given the more unusual nature of one of
our features, namely counting all the verbs to determine the subject, it is perhaps
not surprising that this one attracted a lot of attention – but it remains crucial to
remember that it is only one of nineteen features, and cannot determine genre
on its own. I propose to illustrate the contemporary approach to literary theory
6 R. A. Burridge, What Are the Gospels? A Comparison with Graeco-Roman Biography, 2nd
ed. (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 2004), 252–307.
7 See particularly Burridge, What Are the Gospels?, 37–47 (ch. 3, §§ C–D), and 239–43 (ch.
10, §§ B.2–3).
8 See Burridge, What Are the Gospels?, 105–23 (ch. 5).
The Gospels and Ancient Biography 11
of genres with reference to a recent important handbook and consider how this
impacts popular literature and culture.
1. Genre Theory – Frow’s Handbook (2005/2015)

John Frow’s handbook, Genre, in the key New Critical Idiom series was first
published in 2005, and has recently been revised for its second edition (2015).9 It
draws upon ancient authors like Plato and Aristotle, and goes through Goethe to
modern theorists like Frye, Derrida, Genette, Todorov, and Bakhtin; therefore,
it may safely be taken as a reliable guide to current literary theory as both taught
in the classroom and used by practitioners. Since genre affects everything, Frow
seeks to explain “how genres organise verbal and non-verbal discourse … and
how they contribute to the social structuring of meaning”; he is “not concerned
with the question of how to classify or to recognise genres, and the book is
neither a description nor an endorsement of existing classifications,” but “about
how genres actively generate and shape knowledge of the world.”10
His treatment of “literary genre theory” in chapter 3 begins with taxonomies,
but moves to more biological metaphors, such as family or species, in an his-
torical survey from Plato and Aristotle through to today’s understandings of
“poetics”; significantly Frow makes it clear that he distinguishes genres from
modes, in “the ‘adjectival’ sense suggested by Fowler,” such as in “gothic thriller,
pastoral elegy, satirical sitcom”; thus a “dramatic lyric” is very different from
“lyrical drama.”11 Chapter 4, “Implication and Relevance,” maps out the various
dimensions and explores how genres project “worlds,” before turning in chapter
5 to “Genre and Interpretation” through contrasting a Nigerian scam email with
a proper business letter, followed by a professional gambler suddenly breaking
into song accompanied by an unseen orchestra on an antiquated river steamer
in the 1951 musical film, Showboat. Frow discusses how genres provide “cues”
or “figures” for the interpretation of meaning as a “set of expectations that guide
our engagement with texts”; crucially, he also notes that “any text addressed to an
unknown audience may need to strengthen the cues”12 – and this is how we have
used the “cues” of the various generic features shared between the gospels and
ancient Lives to determine their genre as biography. Finally, Frow looks at how
“genres exist only in relation to other genres,” and yet are constantly changing,
concluding with the emergence of new genres like the blog, email, and micro-
blog.13
9 J. Frow, Genre, New Critical Idiom (London: Routledge, 2005), 2nd ed. (2015).
10 Frow, Genre, 1–4; see also the series editor’s preface at ibid., ix.
11 Frow, Genre, 55–78, 71.
12 Frow, Genre, 109–33 (ch. 5), 132.
13 Frow, Genre, 134–67 (ch. 6).
It is both reassuring and comforting that Frow’s much more recent handbook
follows a very similar path to that which we originally mapped out in the first
edition of What Are the Gospels? – tracing genre theory from Plato to Russian
formalists and French structuralists, noting that its functions shift from classifi-
cation and taxonomy to a “set of expectations” to guide our reading, identifying
terminology and levels like mode, genre, and sub-genre, signalling a “family
resemblance” through a range of generic features, outlining shifts and devel-
opments as genres change and grow, before finally coming to the use of genre in
the interpretation and evaluation of texts.14 It is particularly important that Frow
reaffirms Fowler’s two main contributions of the levels of mode, genre, and sub-
genre and also his account of the “life and death of literary forms”15 – since both
of these two aspects will be crucial in our analysis of gospel commentaries and
scholarship which will follow shortly.
2. Genre in Popular Culture – Gaiman (2013)

Secondly, we turn from the literary theorist to a practitioner with an enormous
popular appeal, namely, Neil Gaiman, famous for his many works of fiction in
comic books (including writing for DC and Marvel Comics), plays, films, and
especially novels written in the genres of science fiction and fantasy literature
(such as American Gods [2001], and Stardust [1999], later made into a film
[2007]), as well as producing the novel Good Omens with Sir Terry Pratchett
(1990), not to mention writing episodes for BBC’s Doctor Who (2011 and 2013)
and appearing as a cartoon version of himself in “The Book Job” episode of
The Simpsons (2011). His collection, The View from the Cheap Seats, includes a
lecture given at the 35th International Conference on the Fantastic in the Arts
in 2013, entitled “The Pornography of Genre, or the Genre of Pornography.”16
Given that Gaiman’s entire professional career has been writing in certain spe-
cific genres, his reflections are both fascinating and instructive, as he admits that
the “big thing that niggled at me was genre. I’m a genre writer, in the same way
that this is a genre conference, and that only gets sticky or problematic in either
case when one asks what the genre is, which leads us to a whole boatload of other
questions.” He further observes:
Life does not obey genre rules. It lurches easily or uneasily from soap opera to farce,
office romance to medical drama to police procedural or pornography, sometimes within
14 See Burridge, What Are the Gospels?, 25–52 (ch. 2).

15 A. Fowler, Kinds of Literature: An Introduction to the Theory of Genres and Modes (Ox-
ford: Clarendon, 1982), 56–57, 164–67; idem, “The Life and Death of Literary Forms,” in New
Directions in Literary History, ed. R. Cohen (London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1974), 77–94;
Burridge, What Are the Gospels?, 39–40, 44–45.
16 In idem, The View from the Cheap Seats: Selected Nonfiction (New York: HarperCollins,
2013), 39–48.
minutes … but then you have to ask yourself, what’s genre? It’s not subject matter. It’s
not tone. Genre, it had always seemed to me, was a set of assumptions, a loose contract
between the creator and the audience.17
This is congruent with all that we have noted about genre – that it is determined
by a whole range of features which include both form and content, and cannot be
decided by any one aspect like “content” or “tone” – while Gaiman’s phrase “a set
of assumptions, a loose contract between the creator and the audience” echoes
of our original definition of a “shared set of expectations or contract, common to
both author and reader.”18
He illustrates this by quoting Linda Williams’s comparison of porn films (you
see, he does get there eventually!) with musicals, where the plot exists to get you
from song to song, and similarly with the different sexual scenarios in a porn
movie:
if you take them out – the songs from a musical, the sex acts from a porn film, the gunfights
from a Western – then they no longer have the thing that the person came to see. The
people who have come to that genre, looking for that thing, will feel cheated, feel they have
not received their money’s worth.
Gaiman confesses, “and when I understood that, I understood so much more – it

was as if a light had been turned on in my head.”19 The rest of the lecture notes
that “subject matter does not make genre,” and goes on to examine how genre
“privileges story,” before finally admitting, “but I suspect I’m at my most success-
ful and ambitious and foolish and wise as a writer when I have no idea what sort
of thing it is that I’m writing.”20
What Frow’s recent handbook – or for that matter, Fowler and all the lit-
erary theorists which we first analyzed three decades ago – spelled out in theory,
Gaiman is doing in practice, providing what his various readers and audiences
have come to expect and want to receive from his different books, comics, or
films. Genre may only be a “tool” hanging in the literary or biblical critic’s
garden shed – but it is very difficult to dig down deeply or to enable things to
grow, develop, and blossom without such a tool. Thus, we can now proceed with
our analysis of gospel scholarship over the last couple of decades confident that
both the original version of What Are the Gospels? and all that has flowed from
it over the years is resting on a secure literary and theoretical base about genre,
which can also be found right across popular culture today.
17 Gaiman, “Pornography of Genre,” 43.

18 Burridge, What Are the Gospels?, 39 (originally written in 1992).
19 Gaiman, “Pornography of Genre,” 43–44, referring to L. Williams, Hard Core: Power,
Pleasure and the “Frenzy of the Visible” (Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 1989), rev.
ed. (1999).
20 Gaiman, “Pornography of Genre,” 45–47.
B. Gospel Scholarship and Commentaries

(2000–2018)
Walton suggests, “given the wide acceptance of Burridge’s conclusions, it is

worth considering commentaries on the Gospels since 1999, on the basis that
a seven-year interval should give sufficient time for Burridge’s conclusions to
permeate scholarship sufficiently to affect them.”21 So we shall consider major
books and commentaries which have appeared on each gospel in turn since
around 2000.
1. Matthew’s Gospel

a. The Previous Consensus – Davies and Allison
The first part of W. D. Davies’s and Dale C. Allison’s comprehensive three-
volume ICC, the most important critical commentary on Matthew, was pub-
lished in 1988, and quickly comes to a comment about the “exponents of ‘the
New Criticism,’ so-called,” who think “genre becomes important.”22 Davies and
Allison argue that Matthew is “an omnibus of genres … the multiplicity of genres
in Matthew calls for flexibility in method and aim,” and “if it be legitimate to use
the literary term, ‘genre,’ for our canonical gospels – an uncertain issue – … from
a classical point of view ‘gospel’ is not a literary genre.”23 This is typical of most
major critical commentaries and scholarly approaches throughout much of the
twentieth century from the days of Bultmann and the form critics onwards.
b. The Beginnings of Change – Garland, Stanton, and Carter

In our survey in 2004, we noted that things had begun to change with David
E. Garland’s Reading Matthew adapting my list of the purposes of ancient Lives
for Matthew, and Graham N. Stanton’s acceptance that “the gospels are a type of
Graeco-Roman biography.”24 Stanton’s untimely death in 2009 sadly prevented
any further research from him in this, or any other, area. However, Warren
Carter’s provocative Matthew and the Margins does note that I had “persua-
sively” argued that the gospels are bioi, which he then develops for his stress on
both the person of Jesus and the “community of disciples” around him.25
21 Walton, “What Are the Gospels?,” 88.
22 W. D. Davies and D. C. Allison, Jr., A Critical and Exegetical Commentary on the Gospel
according to Saint Matthew, 3 vols., ICC (Edinburgh: T&T Clark, 1988–1997), 1:2.
23 Davies and Allison, Gospel according to Saint Matthew, 1:3.
24 D. E. Garland, Reading Matthew: A Literary and Theological Commentary on the First
Gospel, Reading the New Testament (New York: Crossroad, 1993); G. N. Stanton, A Gospel for a
New People: Studies in Matthew (Edinburgh: T&T Clark, 1992), 64.
25 W. Carter, Matthew and the Margins: A Sociopolitical and Religious Reading, Bible and
Liberation (Maryknoll, NY: Orbis, 2000), 8.
c. Change of Consensus – Keener (1997, 1999, 2009)

Keener’s first commentary (1997) on Matthew was (one of, if not) the first to
include a section on “Matthew as Biography” early in his introduction, noting
that this was how it was understood through most of history up to 1915, and
then citing Talbert, Aune, Stanton, and myself as the “current trend … again
to recognize the Gospels as ancient biography.”26 But a couple of years later,
Keener’s larger commentary quickly comes to a whole section on “Matthew as
Biography,”27 in which he states that “the most complete statement of the ques-
tion to date comes from … Richard A. Burridge.”28 Keener continues to refer to
my work throughout both the rest of the introduction and at various places in
the commentary itself, not only to the 1992 original edition of my book, but also
Four Gospels, One Jesus? (1994) and my contribution on gospel audiences to The
Gospels for All Christians (1998).29
Keener’s commentary was then republished as a new edition in 2009 with the
addition of an extended discussion of “Matthew and Graeco-Roman Rhetoric.”30
The first page of his new preface states that the importance of the genres of an-
cient biography and histories are “widely argued today, but see most influentially
Richard A. Burridge”31 – thereby demonstrating the shift in scholarly consensus
which had taken place over that first decade of the twenty-first century.
d. Change of Consensus Accepted – Witherington

Witherington’s Smyth & Helwys commentary may have been the first actually to
devote a section on “Genre” in his introduction, opening with “readers, through-
out much of church history, have understood Matthew’s Gospel to be some sort
of biography,” to which he adds a footnote referencing the original 1992 version
of my book.32 He describes how ancient biography differs from modern con-
cepts, and how Matthew is distinguished from rabbinic and Qumran literature
by his interest not only in God, but in the human story of Jesus. He also quotes
Plutarch’s distinction between ἱστορία and βίος in his prologue to the Alexander
26 C. S. Keener, Matthew, IVP New Testament Commentary 1 (Downers Grove, IL: IVP,
1997), 24–26.
27 C. S. Keener, A Commentary on the Gospel of Matthew (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans,
1999), 1, 16–24.
28 Keener, Commentary on the Gospel of Matthew, 17.
29 R. A. Burridge, Four Gospels, One Jesus? A Symbolic Reading (London: SPCK; Grand
Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1994), 2nd ed. (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 2005), 3rd ed. (2014);
idem, “About People, by People, for People: Gospel Genre and Audiences,” in The Gospels for
All Christians: Rethinking the Gospel Audiences, ed. R. Bauckham (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerd-
mans, 1998), 113–45.
30 C. S. Keener, The Gospel of Matthew: A Socio-Rhetorical Commentary (Grand Rapids,
MI: Eerdmans, 2009), xxv–l.
31 Keener, Gospel of Matthew, viii and n. 1.
32 B. Witherington III, Matthew, SHBC (Macon: Smyth & Helwys, 2006), 11–13.
(1.1–3),33 and then applies this to Matthew’s portrait of Jesus. Finally, he agrees
with Keener, who “rightly in my judgement, concludes that Matthew’s Gospel
should be considered an ancient biography.”34 Later in the commentary, With-
erington states that “this entire Gospel is following the genre of biography, which
more often than not included stories about the hero’s origins and birth.”35
e. Change of Consensus Resisted – Luz

Luz’s large and comprehensive commentary went through almost as many ver-
sions as some scholarly reconstructions of the gospel of Matthew itself: the first
volumes in German appeared in the mid-to-late 1980s, followed by some English
translations, while the definitive fifth edition in German (reworked through
1998–2000) appeared in 2002, to be translated into English for the Hermeneia
series in 2007.36 In the first edition, a short section on “genre” begins by asking,
“what is the genre of the Gospel of Matthew? Certainly, it had to remind the
Jewish-Christian readers first of all of a Hellenistic βίος,” with a footnote stating
that “the relationship of the Gospels to ‘biography’ is today very controversial.”37
Seventeen years later in the fifth edition, Luz has a longer section on “genre and
intention of the gospel” which begins by stating that “the discussion about the
genre of the Gospel of Matthew has not yet led to a consensus,” but after a brief
consideration of proposals about the gospel being sui generis, logia, and lectionary,
he does admit that “the most widespread view today is that the Gospel of Matthew
is a biography,” referencing my 1992 original edition of What Are the Gospels?38
This is further evidence of the shift in the scholarly consensus about the gospels
as biography which has come about in response to my work and that of others.
Luz repeats his view in an essay originally published as a birthday greeting for
Frans Neirynck in 1993 on fictionality in Matthew, where he argues that “Mat-
thew has no developed awareness of genre distinctions” and “gives no evidence
of knowing Hellenistic historiography, tragedies, biographies, or novels”; he con-
cludes, “in answer to the ‘genre’ question we can say that his concern is to write a
33 See Burridge, What Are the Gospels?, 60–62, for my original discussion on Plutarch.
34 Witherington, Matthew, 13.
35 Witherington, Matthew, 53.
36 U. Luz, Das Evangelium nach Matthäus, vol. 1: Mt 1–7, EKKNT 1/1 (Zürich: Benziger;
Neukirchen-Vluyn: Neukirchener Verlag, 1985), 5th ed. (2002); Eng. trans. of 5th ed. in vol. 1 of
Matthew: A Commentary, ed. H. Koester, trans. J. E. Crouch, 3 vols., Hermeneia (Minneapolis:
Fortress, 2001–2007).
37 U. Luz, Matthew 1–7: A Commentary, trans. W. C. Linss, CC (Minneapolis: Augsburg,
1989), 44–46, 44 and n. 43 (emphasis original); cf. the German: “Das Verhältnis der Evangelien
zur ‘Biographie’ ist heute sehr umstritten” (Das Evangelium nach Matthäus, vol. 1, 1st ed., 27
n. 43).
38 Luz, Matthew: A Commentary, 1:13–18, 13, 14; German original: “Heute am verbreitets-
ten ist die Bestimmung des Mt-Evangeliums als Biographie” (Das Evangelium nach Matthäus,
vol. 1, 5th ed., 40).
new Gospel of Mark for his community, supplemented by Jesus’ teaching,” with
a footnote stating “from the Matthean perspective, the early church was fully
justified in entitling the Matthean story ‘εὐαγγέλιον’ and not ‘βίος.’”39 Equally,
in a later essay, he is still arguing that “in terms of genre, I find Matthew’s Gospel
closely related to Jewish books …. We have to place Matthew’s Gospel in this
tradition, rather than in the Hellenistic tradition of biography or history.”40
f. Further Traditional Assumptions – France, Turner, and Evans

Something similar can be seen in R. T. France’s NICNT commentary, which,
although published in 2007, refers to his earlier thinking and scholarship in his
1989 treatment of Matthew: Evangelist and Teacher: “I do not intend to argue
again here the traditional issues of authorship, provenance, date, and sources
which would normally be found in a commentary introduction,” preferring to
refer readers to his earlier work.41 Therefore, there is no reference to any of the
more recent debate about gospel genre or biography. On the other hand, David
L. Turner’s BECNT commentary, published the following year, 2008, devotes a
little over a page of his introduction to “Gospel Genre: The Question of History
and Theology,” noting that “some scholars argue that the Gospels are examples
of the ancient genre of laudatory biography or encomium,” referencing Shuler
and Talbert. Turner concludes:
Be that as it may, most if not all would agree that the Gospels are not comprehensive
biographies or exhaustive histories of Jesus …. The Gospels continue to teach the church
by narrating the reliable words and deeds of Jesus. The Gospel authors faithfully present
story and history and creatively interpret history as story …
at which point he footnotes myself, Frickenschmidt, Guelich, Nolland, Shuler,

and Stanton.42 Perhaps more surprising is the complete lack of any reference to
genre or biography in Craig A. Evans’s 2012 Cambridge commentary.43
g. Change of Consensus Assumed – McKnight

After these instances of the new consensus not being taken into account, we turn
finally to a collection of essays in honor of Graham Stanton which do reflect the
change of consensus. In my biographical analysis of Stanton’s own career as a
39 U. Luz, “Fictionality and Loyalty to Tradition in Matthew’s Gospel in the Light of Greek
Literature,” in idem, Studies in Matthew, trans. R. Selle (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 2005),
54–79, 77, 79.
40 U. Luz, “The Gospel of Matthew: A New Story of Jesus, or a Rewritten One?,” in idem,
Studies in Matthew, 18–36, 30, 31.
41 R. T. France, The Gospel of Matthew, NICNT 1 (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1999),
1–22, 14; see also idem, Matthew: Evangelist and Teacher (Exeter: Paternoster, 1989).
42 D. L. Turner, Matthew, BECNT (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Academic, 2008), 4–5, and
n. 3.
43 C. A. Evans, Matthew, NCBC (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2012).
five-fold chiasm reflecting Matthew’s five discourses, I noted that all Stanton’s
major book titles contained one or other of the words “Jesus” and “Gospel,” or
in at least two cases, both!44 Scot McKnight entitles his own contribution, “Mat-
thew as ‘Gospel,’” in which he pondered upon Stanton’s interest in both the way
Paul understood the “gospel” as well as the documents which bear that name,
but added: “I also want to tap into another issue that has shaped deep concerns
in Graham’s career: the gospel genre question.” McKnight argues that Stanton’s
own doctoral work in his 1974 SNTS monograph “paved the way for the later
turn to βίοι, biographies, to comprehend accurately the genre question, and one
thus thinks of the now established conclusions of Richard Burridge.”45 After a
study of Paul and gospel, McKnight turns to Matthew and begins, “I agree with
Richard Burridge and many others: the gospels are βίοι,” and then concludes,
“I am not arguing that Matthew’s Gospel is actually ‘gospel genre,’ as if the βίος
theory at work today is mistaken. I am happy to call Matthew a βίος instead of
an εὐαγγέλιον … because it tells a saving story about Jesus as Messiah, gospels
whether it is a gospel genre or not.”46
Thus this survey of Matthean scholarship has shown how commentaries have
moved from not considering genre at all in their introductions in the mid-later
twentieth century, before my original edition was published, to debating and
discussing it around the time of the second edition, and now the biographical
hypothesis has not only become accepted but increasingly assumed and used for
further research.
2. Mark’s Gospel

a. The Former Consensus – Marcus, Yarbro Collins, et al.
Joel Marcus’s introduction to his Anchor Bible commentary discusses Mark as
biography (with reference to my first edition), as history (Yarbro Collins), and
as novel (Tolbert).47 He argues that there are “problems” with calling Mark a
biography, although there are also some “similarities,” and he concludes that
“while this dramatization may borrow generic features from known forms such
as dramas, biographies, and biblical histories, it is also a new creation.”48 So
44 R. A. Burridge, “The Gospel of Jesus: Graham Stanton, Biography and the Genre of
Matthew,” in Jesus, Matthew’s Gospel and Early Christianity: Studies in Memory of Graham
N. Stanton, ed. D. M. Gurtner, J. Willitts, and Richard A. Burridge, LNTS 435 (London: T&T
Clark, 2011), 5–22, esp. 21.
45 S. McKnight, “Matthew as ‘Gospel,’” in Gurtner, Willitts, and Burridge, Matthew’s Gospel
and Early Christianity, 59–75, 60–61.
46 “Matthew as ‘Gospel,’” 67, 74 (emphasis original).
47 J. Marcus, Mark: A New Translation with Introduction and Commentary, 2 vols., AYB 27,
27A (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2000, 2009), 1:64–69.
48 Marcus, Mark, 1:69.
here we see the traditional Bultmannian idea of “uniqueness” arising from as-
sumptions about biography which are not actually based on examples of ancient
Lives.
We must note the particular interest taken in gospel genre in general, especially
Mark, by Adela Yarbro Collins. Her 1989 Père Marquette Lecture, reproduced
almost verbatim as the first chapter in her Beginning of the Gospel,49 begins with
a consideration of the gospels’ genre as either something completely new, or just
“gospel,” but quickly moves on to discussion of the genre of biography, refer-
encing the early work of Clyde W. Votaw in 1915 and its more recent espousal
by David E. Aune and C. H. Talbert. However, her view of ancient biography is
rather rigid and traditional, drawing on the classification of Leo (1901). She then
turns to compare history with myth, biography, and apocalypse, before conclud-
ing that while Mark is “not history in the rational, empirical sense of Thucydides
or in the modern critical sense, it seems to be history in an eschatological or
apocalyptic sense.”50 She reuses much of her critique of my first edition (given at
the 1994 International SBL meeting in Leuven)51 in parts of her introduction to
her 2008 Hermeneia commentary, where she has a long section about genre,52 at
the end of which Yarbro Collins concludes that Mark has “an important affinity
with what I am calling the didactic type of ancient biography,” and notes that
“the historical type of biography is very close to the historical monograph, which
focuses on a single person.”53 This is a very odd conclusion, since any “historical
monograph, which focuses on a single person” is actually a biography, ipso facto,
by that very fact. As we will have to cause to note at various points throughout
this essay, greater attention to literary theory of genres (which function at the
level of nouns) and modes (more adjectival) would help to clarify this kind of
confusion. In fact, Yarbro Collins gets this right when she uses my critique of
Bilezikian’s definition of Mark’s genre as “tragedy”: “Richard Burridge was right
in arguing that Mark may have been written in the tragic mode, but it is not a
tragedy.”54
Unfortunately, this confusion of genre and mode becomes even more domi-
nant when she concludes that this gospel is an “eschatological historical mono-
graph” that “focuses on the activity of a leading individual.”55 The piling up of
49 A. Yarbro Collins, Is Mark’s Gospel a Life of Jesus? The Question of Genre, Père Marquette
Lecture (Milwaukee, WI: Marquette University Press, 1990); cf. eadem, The Beginning of the
Gospel: Probings of Mark in Context (Minneapolis: Fortress, 1992), 1–38 (ch. 1).
50 Yarbro Collins, Is Mark’s Gospel a Life of Jesus?, 63; eadem, Beginning of the Gospel, 37.
51 A. Yarbro Collins, “Genre and the Gospels,” JR 75/2 (1995): 239–46.
52 A. Yarbro Collins, Mark: A Commentary, ed. H. W. Attridge, Hermeneia (Minneapolis:
Fortress, 2007), 15–43; compare her section about my work, ibid., 27–30, with eadem, “Genre
and the Gospels.”
53 Yarbro Collins, Mark, 33.
54 Yarbro Collins, Mark, 91, quoting Burridge, What Are the Gospels?, 239–40.
55 Yarbro Collins, Mark, 42–43.
modal adjectives like “eschatological” or “historical” or even “biographical” onto

the genre noun of “monograph” almost brings us back to ideas of uniqueness
and sui generis, since I know of no other comparable examples of this modalized
(sub-?)genre within ancient literature. Similarly, Adam Winn remarks, “Collins
opts for the label ‘Eschatological Historical Monograph’ though it is difficult to
understand why she has substituted ‘Monograph’ for ‘Biography’ when in her
discussion of genre she demonstrates such close affinity between Mark and two
different types of ancient biography.”56
Similarly, James R. Edwards’s Pillar NT commentary also repeats the tradi-
tional “unique” line, despite the fact that § 6 of his introduction, “Jesus in the
Gospel of Mark,” begins with “Every pericope in Mark is about Jesus except for
two … we learn who Jesus is not so much from what he says as from what he
does.”57 This strong Christological focus on Jesus’s words and deeds should lead
him to the genre of biography.
b. The Tide Starts to Turn – France, Witherington, et al.

R. T. France’s NIGTC commentary on Mark notes that “Fifty years ago we were
drilled in the critical orthodoxy of the form-critical school which insisted that
the gospels were not to be seen as biographies, but since then there has been a
massive swing in scholarly opinion on this point,” referencing my work among
others.58
In addition to Ben Witherington’s recognition of the biographical genre for
Matthew in his 2007 commentary, he was also among the first to accept it for
Mark in his earlier 2001 commentary on this gospel. He begins his introduction
with a full discussion of Mark’s genre, starting with C. S. Lewis’s aphorism that
“The first qualification for judging any piece of workmanship from a corkscrew
to a cathedral is to know what it is – what it was intended to do and how it is
meant to be used.”59 After a short introduction to the literary theory of genre as
a guide to interpretation, a “compact between an author and his reader,”60 and
generic motifs or features, drawing upon my work, Witherington considers Yar-
bro Collins’s and Marcus’s suggestions of historical monograph: however, this
is also not considered sufficient, since Mark “focuses not on a series of events
56 A. Winn, Mark and the Elijah-Elisha Narrative: Considering the Practice of Greco-Roman
Imitation in the Search for Markan Source Material (Eugene, OR: Pickwick, 2010), 63.
57 J. R. Edwards, The Gospel according to Mark, PillarNTC (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans,
2001), 12–13.
58 R. T. France, The Gospel of Mark: A Commentary on the Greek Text, NIGTC (Grand
Rapids, MI: Eerdmans; Carlisle: Paternoster, 2002), 5 and n. 9.
59 B. Witherington III, The Gospel of Mark: A Socio-Rhetorical Commentary (Grand Rapids,
MI: Eerdmans, 2001), 1, quoting C. S. Lewis, A Preface to Paradise Lost, Being the Ballard Mat-
thews Lectures, Delivered at University College, North Wales, 1941 (Oxford: Oxford University
Press, 1942), 1.
60 Witherington, Gospel of Mark, 1–9, 2.
and those involved, but on a singular person”; he “is focusing on one central
figure who is the paradigm for his audience – Jesus.”61 Therefore, he turns to
an extensive discussion of ancient biography, following my work, before finally
concluding “Mark’s work is, and would have been seen as, a biography.”62
Brian J. Incigneri’s 2003 treatment of the “setting and rhetoric” of Mark
includes a brief discussion of Bauckham and my contribution to The Gospels
for all Christians, but he is not convinced: “The genre of the Gospel has been
proven over time to be a powerful rhetorical form” – though neither quite how
it “has been proven” nor what the relationship of “form” to “genre” might be is
made clear.63 Eventually, Incigneri concludes that “the weight of evidence has
shown that Mark’s Gospel is best explained as a document written with a very
particular, local situation in mind … the Gospel to the Romans” or even “of the
Romans.”64
On the other hand, Hendrika N. Roskam’s 2004 analysis of Mark’s purpose
starts out with the traditional view that it was “a historical, biographical account,”
which was then challenged by the form critics, before coming to “the current
discussion on biography as a possible genre for Mark’s Gospel” which she con-
siders “well-founded,”65 concluding: “Mark’s Gospel is best characterized not as
a biography of Jesus, but as an apologetic writing in biographical form.”66 Once
again, we notice the mixing of nouns and adjectives which a clearer understand-
ing of the different levels of genre and mode would help clarify.
Geoff R. Webb discusses Mark’s genre within Bakhtin’s “third-level dia-
logue” and his understanding of “genre-memory” and “chronotype,” stating that
“the results of genre analysis have typically been inconclusive in relation to the
Gospels as a ‘genre,’”67 and deciding that “the genre of ‘novel’ is seen as being
a primary vehicle for the Gospel,” but it is also “a separate ‘genre,’ linked but
distinct from other generic forms such as aretalogy, and the symposium.”68 Also
writing in 2008, Robert H. Stein describes “a lengthy and extensive debate over
the exact genre of the Gospel of Mark,” before concluding with the marvellous
synthesis that it is a “historical narrative biography”!69
61 Witherington, Gospel of Mark, 3 and nn. 10–11.

62 Witherington, Gospel of Mark, 6 n. 18, 8.
63 B. J. Incigneri, The Gospel to the Romans: The Setting and Rhetoric of Mark’s Gospel,
BibInt 65 (Leiden: Brill, 2003), 32–33.
64 Incigneri, Gospel to the Romans, 365.
65 H. N. Roskam, The Purpose of the Gospel of Mark in Its Historical and Social Context,
NovTSup 114 (Leiden: Brill, 2004), 2–14, 13.
66 Roskam, Purpose of the Gospel of Mark, 215–36, 236.
67 G. R. Webb, Mark at the Threshold: Applying Bakhtinian Categories to Markan Charac-
terisation BibInt 95 (Leiden: Brill, 2008), 30–51, 30–31, and see n. 52, which only references the
original 1992 edition of my book.
68 Webb, Mark at the Threshold, 51.
69 R. H. Stein, Mark, BECNT (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Academic, 2008), 19–21.
c. The New Consensus – Biography (2008–2018)

More recent studies reflect the new consensus of the gospels as biographies.
Thus, William R. Telford’s comprehensive manual for writing about Mark states
that “Vigorous discussion has revolved around the issue of Mark’s genre,” and
that “One popular line of approach is to view Mark as a type of Graeco-Roman
biography,” as argued by Frickenschmidt, Bryan, Dormeyer, and myself, while
other possibilities include tragedy and Hellenistic romance.70 Adam Winn notes
that “The genre of Mark’s gospel (as well as the genre of all the canonical gospels)
has long been debated,” before concluding that “Mark might best be identified as
an eschatological historical biography.”71
Other scholars referring to the biographical genre of Mark, using my work,
include Yoon-Man Park,72 Karl Matthias Schmidt,73 and Mary Ann Beavis, who
writes: “Mark has obvious affinities with Hellenistic biography (bios, vita),”
but who also discusses uniqueness, novel, epic, historiography, and tragedy.74
David E. Aune returned to the fray with an interesting contribution about the
genre of both Mark and Matthew, originally published in 2011 and reprinted
in his collected essays in 2013,75 which suggests that Mark is a kind of “parody”
or ironic satire of ancient biography, to which Matthew added “features more
typical of Graeco-Roman biography that had been avoided by Mark”; however,
Aune’s conclusion still states that “the most convincing generic identification of
Mark has been its association with Graeco-Roman biography, a view carefully
argued by Richard Burridge.”76
The biographical genre is also accepted by C. Clifton Black,77 Xabier Pikaza,78
and Camille Focant.79 Darrell Bock states baldly, “The genre of Mark is ancient
70 W. R. Telford, Writing on the Gospel of Mark, Guides to Advanced Biblical Research 1
(Blandford Forum, Dorset: Deo, 2009), 9.
71 Winn, Mark and the Elijah-Elisha Narrative, 61–65, 62, 63.
72 Y.‑M. Park, Mark’s Memory Resources and the Controversy Stories (Mark 2:1–3:6): An
Application of the Frame Theory of Cognitive Science to the Markan Oral-Aural Narrative,
Linguistic Biblical Studies 2 (Leiden: Brill, 2010), 67–68 and n. 121.
73 K. M. Schmidt, Wege des Heils: Erzählstrukturen und Rezeptionskontexte des Markus
evangeliums, NTOA 74 (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 2010), 517–21; “immer wieder
ist darauf hingewiesen worden, dass das Markusevangelium Züge einer Biographie trägt” (518).
74 M. A. Beavis, Mark, Paideia (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Academic, 2011), 14–17.
75 D. E. Aune, “Genre Theory and Genre-Function of Mark and Matthew,” in Mark and
Matthew, vol. 1: Comparative Readings: Understanding the Earliest Gospels in Their First Cen-
tury Settings, ed. E.‑M. Becker and A. Runesson, WUNT 271 (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2011),
145–76, repr. in D. E. Aune, Collected Essays, vol. 2: Jesus, Gospel Tradition and Paul in the
Context of Jewish and Greco-Roman Antiquity, WUNT 303 (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2013),
25–56 (references are to the latter).
76 Aune, “Genre Theory and Genre-Function,” 46, 48 and 55.
77 C. C. Black, Mark, ANTC (Nashville: Abingdon, 2011), 33–34.
78 X. Pikaza, Evangelio de Marcos: La Buena Noticia de Jésus (Navarra: Editorial Verbo
Divino, 2012), 117–19, 118.
79 C. Focant, The Gospel According to Mark: A Commentary, trans. L. R. Keylock (Eugene,
bios … Mark focuses on the acts and sayings of Jesus,”80 while Gabriella Ge-
lardini draws particular attention to my “simple but uncontrovertible empirical
criterion” of counting the subjects of the verbs.81 Lastly, a recent collection of
essays from various SBL research groups and seminars note that Mark has been
identified “as one or another type of Greco-Roman biography,” and that “the
actual gospel genre creates both a theological and a literary predisposition to
biography.”82
In Matthew Ryan Hauge’s and Andrew W. Pitts’s collection on Ancient Edu-
cation and Early Christianity, Pitts uses genre to assess Mark’s use of mimesis
(imitation) concluding “mimesis appears to be genre constrained. The pre-
vailing view still seems to follow Burridge … in proposing that Mark is a βίος of
some sort”;83 he concludes with several lines of further enquiry which follow “if
we adopt the consensus view of Mark as some kind of broadly historical (bio-
graphical?) Greek discourse.”84
d. A Challenge from Historiography – Becker

Eve-Marie Becker’s 2006 survey of Markan research notes the arguments about
the gospel as biography stemming both from myself – “Burridge macht diese
hermeneutische Funktion in einer stärkeren Fokussierung auf die Person Jesu
von Nazaret fest” – and from others like Dormeyer and Tolbert, and also notes
the work of Cancik,85 but she concludes that Mark’s Gattung as simply “Evan-
gelium,” and that “diese Umstände sind für die Bestimmung der Evangelien-Lit-
eratur als Gattung sui generis konstitutiv.”86
OR: Pickwick, 2012), 1–2 – though it is worth noting that it was originally published in French
back in 2004: L’évangile selon Marc, CBNT 2 (Paris: Cerf, 2004).
80 D. Bock, Mark, NCBC (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2015), 37.
81 “[E]in ebenso einfaches wie empirisch unschlagbares Kriterium”: G. Gelardini, Christus
Militans: Studien zur politisch-militärischen Semantik im Markusevangelium vor dem Hinter-
grund des ersten jüdisch-römischen Krieges, NovTSup 165 (Leiden: Brill, 2016), 4–5, nn. 22 and
26.
82 B. S. Crawford and M. P. Miller, eds., Redescribing the Gospel of Mark, ECL 22 (Atlanta:
SBL, 2017), including Miller, “The Social Logic of the Gospel of Mark,” 207–399, 241; W. E.
Arnal, “Mark, War, and Creative Imagination,” 401–82, 459 (quoting from an earlier essay by
Arnal).
83 A. W. Pitts, “The Origins of Greek Mimesis and the Gospel of Mark: Genre as a Potential
Constraint in Assessing Markan Imitation,” in Ancient Education and Early Christianity, ed.
M. R. Hauge and A. W. Pitts, LNTS 533 (London: Bloomsbury T&T Clark, 2016), 107–36, 129.
84 Pitts, “Origins of Greek Mimesis,” 131.
85 E.‑M. Becker, Das Markus-Evangelium im Rahmen antiker Historiographie, WUNT
194 (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2006), 22–23, 43; similarly, eadem, “The Gospel of Mark in
the Context of Ancient Historiography,” in The Function of Ancient Historiography in Biblical
and Cognate Studies, ed. P. G. Kirkpatrick and T. D. Goltz, LHBOTS 489 (London: T&T Clark,
2008), 124–34.
86 Becker, Das Markus-Evangelium, 412.
In her more recent work (2018) on the “birth of Christian history,” Becker
traces the genre and development of ancient historiography before coming to
Mark and then to Luke-Acts.87 Once again she argues that the gospels and Acts are
“early Christian historiographical accounts” (again, note the modal adjective – an
“historiographical account” is different from “historiography,” just as the gospels
are very different from all the long accounts of the elite Roman historians to
whom she refers).88 She defines historiography as a “macro-genre” which “in-
cludes all prose texts dealing with past-time events in various literary forms and
genres: biography, autobiography, ethnography, subject-oriented monograph, to
name a few,”89 and then tries to fit the gospels, especially Mark, and Acts into this
“classification,” noting that they are “a genre sui generis … literary innovation,”
before finally determining that “the gospels do share with ancient biographies
the concept of focusing on a person … however, not all ancient person-centred
historiographical literature can be classified as biography.”90
Regarding this suggestion, the conclusion to the original 1992 version of
What Are the Gospels? noted that “the borders between the genres of historiog-
raphy, monograph, and biography are blurred and flexible,” and the genres can
be “differentiated only by internal features such as subject or focus.” I noted the
“person-centred” approach in much ancient historiography, such as Diodorus
Siculus devoting an entire book (17) to Alexander the Great, or Cicero’s letter
to Lucceius about the Catilinarian conspiracy (Fam. 5.12.2–4), which would
also be a “person-centred” monograph.91 I returned to this in the revised 2004
second edition, where we noted “the tendency for some biographical material to
appear within sections of a larger historiographical work.”92 Finally, in my sub-
sequent article on the genre of Luke-Acts, I observed that “Only by considering
all the features together, especially with analysis of the subject and focus, can
we distinguish between, for example, when Tacitus is composing historiography
(Annals), geographical-ethnographical monograph (Germania), or biography
(Agricola).”93 “Person-centred writing” is typical in ancient historiography,
whether Histories or Annales, where the focus is regularly upon the person of
the general, leader, or emperor being discussed at any one point; however, the
87 E.‑M. Becker, The Birth of Christian History: Memory and Time From Mark to Luke-Acts,
AYBRL (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2018).
88 Becker, Birth of Christian History, 38–51, 39; instead, she draws heavily on J. Marincola,
“Ancient Audiences and Expectations,” in The Cambridge Companion to the Roman Historians,
ed. A. Feldherr (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2009), 11–23, who does not discuss
the gospels or Acts, nor their genres or audiences.
89 Becker, Birth of Christian History, 69.
90 Becker, Birth of Christian History, 71–73.
91 See Burridge, What Are the Gospels?, 237–39.
92 Burridge, What Are the Gospels?, 275–79, 275.
93 R. A. Burridge, “The Genre of Acts – Revisited,” in Reading Acts Today: Essays in Honour
of Loveday C. A. Alexander, ed. S. Walton, T. E. Phillips, L. K. Pieterson, and F. S. Spencer, LNTS
427 (London: T&T Clark, 2011), 1–26.
fact that the focus “centres” upon many different “persons” over a long work
in many volumes and scrolls makes it a history. If, however, it is a single-scroll
work, and thus a monograph, but one which “centres” on several “persons” in-
volved with one event such as the Catilinarian conspiracy, then it is an “histori-
cal monograph.” Yarbro Collins’s suggestion that Mark is an “historical mono-
graph, which focuses on a single person” is actually tantamount to a biography,
ipso facto, by that very fact. Our exercises of verb counting demonstrated that
histories and historical monographs are “person-centred” focusing on various
different people, while a “biographical monograph” does indeed focus “on a
single person,” which is why they are called bioi or vitae, Lives. Becker had it
right in 2006 when she said “Burridge macht diese hermeneutische Funktion in
einer stärkeren Fokussierung auf die Person Jesu von Nazaret fest” – and such
“focusing on the person of Jesus of Nazareth” is what makes the gospels belong
to the genre of ancient biography.
Thus, this survey of Markan scholarship and commentaries over the last
couple of decades has demonstrated a similar pattern to that found with Mat-
thew, namely that it begins with older, more established scholars like Marcus
and Yarbro Collins either reaffirming the old consensus about uniqueness or
arguing for historiography, while others quickly began to accept the biographical
hypothesis through the first decade of this century, so that younger scholars are
now taking it for granted in new avenues for research, despite the attempt by
Becker’s massive project over fifteen years to argue for “a person-centred” his-
toriography.
3. Luke’s Gospel

a. The Traditional Consensus Continues – The First Decade
The first major commentary on Luke to appear since 2000 is François Bovon’s
Hermeneia (vol. 1, 2002), which states “there is debate about the genre of the
work as a whole.”94 However, like Luz’s Hermeneia on Matthew, this is also a
translation from an earlier German original (1989).95 In both the English and
the German versions, Bovon observes that “understandably, Luke concentrates
his attention on the person of Jesus in the first volume, in which he occasionally
avails himself of the conventions of classical biography.”96 Walter Radl (2003) be-
94 F. Bovon, Luke: A Commentary on the Gospel of Luke, ed. H. Koester, trans. C. M. Thom-
as, D. S. Deer, and J. E. Crouch, 3 vols., Hermeneia (Minneapolis: Fortress, 2002–2013), 1:5–6,
5.
95 F. Bovon, Das Evangelium nach Lukas, vol. 1: Lk 1,1–9,50, EKKNT 3/1 (Zürich: Benziger;
Neukirchen-Vluyn: Neukirchener Verlag, 1989).
96 Bovon, Luke, 1:5; idem, Das Evangelium nach Lukas, vol. 1, 19: “Im ersten Buch konzen-
triert sich seine Aufmerksamkeit logischerweise auf die Person Jesu, wobei er hier und da die
Regeln der anitiken Biographie zu Hilfe nimmt.”
gins with “Das Lukas-Evangelium gehört zur Gattung der Evangelien,” though
he does admit that this is “tautologisch klingende”!97 Richard B. Vinson’s Smyth
& Helwys Commentary (2008) has an introduction to the usual topics of author,
audience, sources, date, structure, and themes – but, like Culpepper’s Mark in
this series, has nothing on genre.98 Rick Strelan begins his examination of Luke
the Priest with “the blunt truth is simply expressed by Burridge”99 that “we know
practically nothing of the original authors and audiences of these texts.”100
b. Continuing Debate – Mode and Genre

Moving into the second decade of this century, Keith A. Reich (2011) notes that
Talbert and Burridge place “these works in the genre of ancient Mediterranean
biography (bios),” and then uses this genre to elucidate Luke’s rhetorical approach
to literary topoi, vocabulary and figures of speech.101 While John T. Carroll (2012)
notes that both Talbert and Burridge argue for the “biographical genre,” he
argues that “Luke produces a genre-bending narrative that employs conventions
from both biographical (bios) and historical (historia) narratives” (note the use
of the modal adjective here), and so he prefers Sterling’s “apologetic historiog-
raphy.”102 Doo Hee Lee begins the published version of his 2009 doctoral thesis
on “tragic history” with a consideration of the genre of Luke-Acts as “biography,
novel, epic, or history?,” although he really only considers the latter in any detail,
arguing for what he calls “another aspect of Greco-Roman historiography, that
is, so-called ‘tragic history.’”103 James R. Edwards has a strongly Christological
narrative approach to his Pillar commentary on Mark, although, as Walton ob-
served, “he does not engage explicitly with questions of genre (and, surprisingly,
Burridge does not appear in his index),”104 and it is even more “surprising” with
his 2015 Pillar commentary on Luke, where the introduction says nothing about
genre or what kind of book Luke really is.105
97 W. Radl, Das Evangelium nach Lukas: Kommentar, vol. 1: 1,1–9,50 (Freiburg: Herder
2003), 17.
98 R. B. Vinson, Luke, SHBC (Macon, GA: Smyth & Helwys, 2008).
99 R. Strelan, Luke the Priest: The Authority of the Author of the Third Gospel (Aldershot:
Ashgate, 2008), 3.
100 R. A. Burridge, “Who Writes, Why, and For Whom?,” in The Written Gospel, ed.
M. Bockmuehl and D. A. Hagner (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2005), 99–115, 100.
101 K. A. Reich, Figuring Jesus: The Power of Rhetorical Figures of Speech in the Gospel of
Luke, BibInt 107 (Leiden: Brill, 2011), 21.
102 J. T. Carroll, Luke: A Commentary, NTL (Louisville, KY: Westminster John Knox, 2012),
2–3, 5 and n. 3.
103 D. H. Lee, Luke-Acts and “Tragic History”: Communicating Gospel with the World,
WUNT 2/346 (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2013), 1–3.
105 J. R. Edwards, The Gospel according to Luke, PillarNTC (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans
2015).
c. More Recent Beginning Acceptance of the Biographical Genre of Luke?

Michael Wolter’s Baylor-Mohr Siebeck volume was completed in 2007 and pub-
lished in German in 2008. However, this is still sufficiently recent for him to have
a section in his introduction debating Bauckham’s Gospels for All Christians,
about which Wolter concludes that “Bauckham … is right to draw attention to
the fact that due to their genre gospels do not have ‘addressees’ or ‘recipients’”;106
however, this is Wolter’s only use of “genre.”
Mikeal C. Parsons’s recent major commentary (2016) has a concise but
detailed section on “Luke and Genre” in his introduction. His very helpful
summary begins with the much earlier recognition of the similarities between
the gospels and ancient biographies being “overturned” by Bultmann’s writings
about “sui generis, a genre unto themselves … but with the work of Richard
Burridge (1992, 2004) the pendulum has seemingly swung back fully,” con-
cluding that Luke “wrote his story of Jesus within the generic contours of ancient
biography or bios (see Burridge, 1992, 2004).”107
Thus, as with Matthew and Mark, commentaries on Luke from the first years
of the new millennium, particularly from older, more traditional scholars con-
tinued with the former “unique” genre of “gospel.” However, while this view was
debated over the next few years by younger and newer Matthean and Markan
scholars, it seems to have taken Lukan commentators longer to come to terms
with the shifting consensus across gospel scholarship as a whole. One possible
reason for this may be the debate around whether Luke’s genre can be deter-
mined separately from that of Acts, which we shall come to below. On the whole,
however, Walton’s summary is surely correct: “there is still room for good com-
mentating (perhaps particularly on Luke) which takes the biographical nature of
the Gospels seriously, and which works out the agenda set by Burridge’s research
at every level of the exegesis of the text.”108
4. John’s Gospel

a. Acceptance of the Biographical Genre of the Fourth Gospel (Early 2000s)
Unlike Lukan scholarship, commentators on the fourth gospel were quick to
pick up the biographical hypothesis. The first major 21st-century treatment of
John’s gospel, Andrew T. Lincoln’s study of the “lawsuit motif ” in John, includes
a section about “the lawsuit and genre” arguing that “when genre is defined in
terms of both form and content, then the actual genre of this narrative about
106 M. Wolter, The Gospel according to Luke, trans. W. Coppins and C. Heilig, 2 vols.,
BMSSEC (Waco, TX: Baylor University Press, 2016, 2017), 1:26–27; German original, Das
Lukasevangelium, HNT 5 (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2008).
107 M. C. Parsons, Luke, Paideia (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Academic, 2015), 13–19.
Jesus is ancient biography,” and drawing attention specifically to our “distinction

between mode and genre” in his footnote citing my work.109 He returns to this
topic in his later discussion of “truth” in such narratives, where he is clear that
any such discussion must be set “where it belongs – within the conventions of
ancient biography, of which the Fourth Gospel is a part.” This leads him into a
detailed discussion of the gospel as ancient biography, concluding that attempts
to use modern concepts of “truth” as historical accuracy are both “unnecessary
and inappropriate.”110 This is an excellent example of using the biographical
genre to deal with one of the most vexed issues in Johannine studies. Marianne
Meye Thompson agrees that “in terms of genre … the Gospel can properly be
classified as an ancient biography.”111
The biographical hypothesis received a massive boost with Craig Keener’s
exhaustive 2003 commentary on John: “genre” is its very first word, and it in-
cludes more traditional introductory topics such as source criticism and John’s
relationship to the synoptics within his fifty-page discussion of genre. Coming
to ancient biography, Keener follows my work with an extensive discussion of
Greco-Roman biography and history, Jewish conventions, John’s relationship to
the non-canonical gospels and the synoptics before concluding that “John falls
into the general category of biography” and is therefore to be analyzed, judged,
and interpreted in that light.112 Unusually for such a commentary, Keener does
not just include genre in this section, but he then continues to make extensive
use of the biographical genre of John throughout both the rest of his introduction
and on into his study of the fourth gospel itself.113
In the first edition of her Discovering John (2003), Ruth B. Edwards states that
“John adopts the same literary genre of ‘Gospel’ (which Mark may have devel-
oped out of Graeco-Roman biography),” referencing both my original book and
also the “portraits” in Four Gospels, One Jesus? (1994).114 The second edition
109 A. T. Lincoln, Truth on Trial: The Lawsuit Motif in the Fourth Gospel (Peabody, MA:
Hendrickson, 2000), 169–71, 170 and n. 46; I should note that I remain extremely grateful to Dr.
Lincoln for all his help and assistance when I was doing my doctoral research at Nottingham in
the 1980s, which is how he came to know it – but I am still very pleased that he should be one
of the first to pick it up in print in such a positive manner.
110 Lincoln, Truth on Trial, 378, debating M. Casey, Is John’s Gospel True? (London:
Routledge, 1996); interestingly, Casey was not only Lincoln’s colleague in Nottingham, but was
my Doktorvater supervisor for my original PhD research behind my book!
111 M. M. Thompson, The God of the Gospel of John (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 2001),
13 and n. 33.
112 C. S. Keener, The Gospel of John: A Commentary, 2 vols. (Peabody, MA: Hendrickson,
2003), 3–52, 51.
113 See Keener, Gospel of John, 108, 140, 153, 216, 275, 280, 338, 429, 634, 649, 712, 833, 859,
1069.
114 R. B. Edwards, Discovering John (London: SPCK, 2003), 29 and n. 2, p. 153; repeated in
2nd ed. (2014), 36 and n. 7, 188.; also ibid., 145–46 and n. 7, 163; repeated in 2nd ed., 43 and
n. 19, 189.
(2013) also begins with a useful brief survey of over fifteen commentaries as
well as articles and books on John’s gospel which appeared in the intervening
decade. On the other hand, Udo Schnelle’s contribution to the collected papers
of the SNTS Johannine Writings Seminar (1999–2003) repeats the traditional
German view of “die neue Literaturgattung Evangelium.”115 Andrew Lincoln’s
positive assessment of my work and acceptance of the biographical genre of the
gospels reappears in his Black’s commentary (2005). After a discussion of the
narrative outline, shape, and plot, he has a section on “Genre,” concluding that
“it is a category mistake to judge the Fourth Gospel’s Life of Jesus by the canons
of ancient historiography, let alone those of modern biographical or historical
study” – but instead we should expect what ancient readers would have done,
namely “a substratum of core events from the tradition … shaped by an inter-
pretative superstructure.”116 Warren Carter’s 2006 treatment of John also argues
that “discerning the genre of a piece of literature matters because it often offers us
clues on how to read appropriately,” and proceeds to follow what he describes as
“the fine discussion by R. A. Burridge,” concluding with his final definition of the
gospel as “ancient revelatory biography,” which leads to his three designations
of John as “storyteller, interpreter, evangelist.”117 Carter returned to these issues
later with a chapter on “Genre as Imperial Negotiation: Ancient Biography and
John’s Gospel” in his next book, which concludes that “using Richard Burridge’s
work, I have argued that the Gospel’s dominant genre is best classified as an
ancient biography,” which Carter argues allows it to negotiate with, and even
critique, the Roman imperial world.118
b. Further Implications for John’s Audience, Historicity, and Characterization

(2006–2012)
Timothy J. M. Ling’s sociological study of the “Judaean poor” notes that previous
“two-level” readings about the Johannine community “have been undermined
by reference to their genre,” referencing both Bauckham and my own work.119
Edward W. Klink’s doctoral research under Richard Bauckham has a major
115 U. Schnelle, “Das Johannesevangelium als neue Sinnbildung,” in Theology and Chris-
tology in the Fourth Gospel: Essays by the Members of the SNTS Johannine Writings Seminar,
ed. G. Van Belle, J. G. van der Watt, and P. Maritz, BETL 184 (Leuven: Leuven University Press;
Dudley, MA: Peeters, 2005), 291–314, 301 n. 51.
116 A. T. Lincoln, The Gospel according to Saint John, BNTC 4 (London: Continuum;
Peabody, MA: Hendrickson, 2005), 14–17, 17.
117 W. Carter, John: Storyteller, Interpreter, Evangelist (Peabody, MA: Hendrickson, 2006),
3–20, 17–18 and nn. 1–2.
118 W. Carter, John and Empire: Initial Explorations (London: T&T Clark, 2008), 123–43,
140, and see references to Burridge’s “fine discussion” in nn. 4, 5, 10, 26, 29, 30, 33, 34, 36, 39,
41, 42, 46, and 47, on pp. 141–43.
119 T. J. M. Ling, The Judaean Poor and the Fourth Gospel, SNTSMS 136 (Cambridge: Cam-
bridge University Press, 2006), 166 and nn. 122, 123.
treatment of “gospel genre and a critique of the two-level reading of the Gospel
of John,” which begins by considering the relationship between gospel genre
and the audience, and states that “the most recent and influential argument
for defining the Gospels as Greco-Roman biography … has been by Richard
Burridge, whose research in Gospel genre has become the standard defense for
the bios genre of the Gospels.”120 Thus, Klink takes my work on the biographical
genre of John as the basis for his investigation into John’s audience, leading to his
final conclusion that “using the research of Richard Burridge,” he accepted “the
growing consensus that the Gospels have a family resemblance to Greco-Roman
biography.”121
In 2007, the SBL’s John, Jesus and History seminar published the first of
several volumes of papers presented through this seminar, two of which con-
cern the biographical genre of the gospels, the contributions by Andrew Lincoln
and John Painter.122 Also in that same year, Richard Bauckham brought out a
collection of his essays on narrative, history, and theology in John with a detailed
introduction,123 and two essays about genre: chapter 4 on “Historiographical
Characteristics of the Gospel of John” tackles the old dictum “the Fourth Gospel
is theology, not history,”124 while chapter 5 on “The Audience of the Gospel
of John” takes as his starting point that “recent discussion of the genre of the
Gospels strongly favors the view that contemporaries would have recognized all
four canonical Gospels as a special form of the Greco-Roman biography (which
we should not confuse with the modern biographical genre),” referencing my
work.125
Meanwhile Rowan Williams, Archbishop of Canterbury, decided to adopt
my Bible Reading Fellowship commentary (1998)126 as the prior reading for the
bishops in the Anglican Communion in preparation for the Lambeth Conference
in 2008, stating in his foreword to the revised 2nd edition, “The commentary
120 E. W. Klink III, The Sheep of the Fold: The Audience and Origin of the Gospel of John,
SNTSMS 141 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2007), 107–51, 111.
121 Klink, Sheep of the Fold, 150–51.
122 A. T. Lincoln, “‘We Know That His Testimony Is True’: Johannine Truth Claims and
Historicity,” in John, Jesus, and History, vol. 1: Critical Appraisals of Critical Views, ed. P. N.
Anderson, F. Just, and T. Thatcher, SymS 44 (Atlanta: SBL, 2007), 179–98, esp. 182; J. Painter,
“Memory Holds the Key: The Transformation of Memory in the Interface of History and
Theology in John,” in ibid., 229–45, esp. 230 n. 3, and 235 n. 13.
123 R. Bauckham, The Testimony of the Beloved Disciple: Narrative, History, and Theology in
the Gospel of John (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Academic, 2007), 9–31, esp. 16–21 on genre.
124 Bauckham, Testimony of the Beloved Disciple, 93–112. This chapter is a revised version
of idem, “Historiographical Characteristics of the Gospel of John,” NTS 53 (2007): 17–36.
125 Bauckham, Testimony of the Beloved Disciple, 113–24, 117, and see n. 4. The chapter
is an updated version of idem, “The Audience of the Fourth Gospel,” in Jesus in Johannine
Tradition, ed. R. T. Fortna and T. Thatcher (Louisville, KY: Westminster John Knox, 2001),
101–11.
126 R. A. Burridge, John: The People’s Bible Commentary (Oxford: Bible Reading Fellow-
ship, 1998); 2nd ed. (2008); 3rd ed. (2013).
that is being offered for reflection is one of the finest and most accessible of
modern studies, looking not at individual verses in isolation, but at the narrative
pattern of each chapter and of the gospel as a whole.”127 The twenty-three daily
Bible studies also followed a narrative-biographical approach.128 In 2009, the
second volume of the John, Jesus and History SBL seminar papers appeared,
containing my article on Johannine ethics, and also various references to the
genre of John.129 Jo-Ann Brant’s Paideia commentary (2011) discusses John’s
genre, novel, and “early biography,” and my work.130 Similarly, Alicia D. Myers
explores John’s characterization: “for his bios to be persuasive, it must align with
facts already known about the historical person of Jesus,”131 while Paul N. Ander-
son also assumes that “the genre of the canonical Gospels fits better within the
genres of Jewish and Greco-Roman accounts.”132
c. Resistance to Genre Theory – Ashton and Reynolds (2010–2014)

Dissenting voices emerged in response to John Ashton’s suggestion that John is
related to apocalyptic literature.133 A conference at Bangor in 2010 to celebrate
Ashton’s work included Ashton himself on “Intimations of Apocalyptic,”134 and
Benjamin E. Reynolds’s “Rethinking the Genre of John’s Gospel,” admitting that
“the Gospels do exhibit similarities with Graeco-Roman biography,”135 while
127 R. Williams, “Foreword,” to Burridge, John, 2nd ed., 5.

128 G. West, ed., In the Beginning Was the Word: Group Bible Studies on the Gospel of John
(London: SPCK, 2009).
129 R. A. Burridge, “Imitating Jesus: An Inclusive Approach to the Ethics of the Historical
Jesus and John’s Gospel,” in John, Jesus, and History, vol. 2: Aspects of Historicity in the Fourth
Gospel, ed. P. N. Anderson, F. Just, and T. Thatcher, ECL 2, SymS 44 (Atlanta: SBL, 2009), 281–
90, with response from G. R. O’Day, “Aspects of Historicity in John 13–21: A Response,” ibid.,
365–76, esp. 373–75 on the impact of the “starting point” with genre. See also C. S. Keener, “‘We
Beheld His Glory!’ (John 1:14),” ibid., 15–25; and the summary conclusions in P. N. Anderson,
“Aspects of Historicity in the Fourth Gospel: Consensus and Convergences,” ibid., 379–86, 381.
130 J.‑A. Brant, John, Paideia (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 2011), 12–15, 166–68.
131 A. D. Myers, Characterizing Jesus: A Rhetorical Analysis on the Fourth Gospel’s Use of
Scripture in its Presentation of Jesus, LNTS 458 (London: T&T Clark, 2012), 26 and n. 12.
132 P. N. Anderson, “Philip: A Connective Figure in Polyvalent Perspective,” in Character
Studies in the Fourth Gospel: Narrative Approaches to Seventy Figures in John, ed. S. A. Hunt,
D. F. Tolmie, and R. Zimmermann, WUNT 314 (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2013), 168–88, 187
and n. 43.
133 See J. Ashton, Understanding the Fourth Gospel, 2nd ed. (Oxford: Oxford University
Press, 2007), esp. 307–20.
134 J. Ashton, “Intimations of Apocalyptic: Looking Back and Looking Forward,” in John’s
Gospel and Intimations of Apocalyptic, ed. C. H. Williams and C. Rowland (London: T&T
Clark, 2013), 3–35.
135 “John and the Jewish Apocalypses: Rethinking the Genre of John’s Gospel,” in Williams
and Rowland, John’s Gospel and Intimations of Apocalyptic, 36–57, 54; see also n. 65 which refers
only to the first 1992 edition of my book, which is in keeping with the rest of his bibliography
and notes which refer almost entirely to works dating from before 2000, and in many cases, very
much earlier.
even Rowland and Williams recognize in their introduction: “From any point
of view the Gospel of John can hardly be said to be immediately and obviously a
fully blown apocalypse.”136
Ashton’s disdain for literary theory is clear from his remarks in his “Excursus”
in his next book where he dismisses my summary that “genre is at the heart of
all attempts to communicate” as “patent nonsense.”137 In fact, more attention to
the literary theory not just of genres, but also of modes, might have prevented
Ashton and his disciples from claiming that the genre of the gospels is apoc-
alypse; without such a literary theory of genre, Ashton reiterates rather dated
views such as Wrede’s messianic secret, or Bultmann’s form-critical approaches
in his chapter on the “Consciousness of Genre.”138
d. Further Theory and Acceptance (2015–2017)

More attention to the literary and genre theory may also have been helpful in
Johnson Thomaskutty’s treatment of the use of the genre of “dialogue” in John,
where he compares “Platonic dialogues” with “Johannine dialogues” as both the
same thing, “dialogue as a literary and rhetorical genre”139 – ignoring the fact
that the Platonic dialogues are stand-alone works often spanning many scrolls in
length, while the Johannine dialogues are relatively short and contained within
only the first half of John’s bios of Jesus.140
Kasper Bro Larsen’s conference on “The Gospel of John as Genre Mosaic”
at Aarhus University in Denmark, 23–26 June 2014, produced an interesting
volume which begins with Harold W. Attridge on “genre bending.”141 Colleen
M. Conway’s contribution on gender begins, “Since Richard Burridge’s detailed
comparison of the Gospels with Greco-Roman biographies, many New Tes-
tament scholars have accepted his view that the gospels are a form of ancient
biography, including the Gospel of John,”142 while George L. Parsenios starts
similarly, “the canonical Gospels are generally viewed as a form of ancient
biography.”143 Other contributors similarly draw upon my work on ancient biog-
136 Williams and Rowland, John’s Gospel and Intimations of Apocalyptic, ix.
137 J. Ashton, “Excursus I: The Gospel Genre,” in idem, The Gospel of John and Christian
Origins (Minneapolis: Fortress, 2014), 23–29, 23, 25.
138 Ashton, Understanding the Fourth Gospel, 31–43.
139 J. Thomaskutty, Dialogue in the Book of Signs: A Polyvalent Analysis of John 1:19–12:50,
BibInt 136 (Leiden: Brill, 2015), 475.
140 Note the references to my work in Thomaskutty, Dialogue in the Book of Signs, 476 n. 8,
and earlier on p. 132 n. 45, so that he is familiar with the wider biographical genre of John’s
gospel.
141 H. W. Attridge, “The Gospel of John: Genre Matters?,” in The Gospel of John as Genre
Mosaic, ed. K. B. Larsen, SANt 3 (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 2015) 27–45, esp. 31
and n. 13. See also Attridge, “Genre Bending in the Fourth Gospel,” JBL 121 (2002): 3–21.
142 C. M. Conway, “John, Gender, and Genre: Revisiting the Woman Question after Mas-
culinity Studies,” in Larsen, Gospel of John as Genre Mosaic, 69–84, 70, and see n. 5.
143 G. L. Parsenios, “The Silent Spaces between Narrative and Drama: Mimesis and Diegesis
raphy, including Petersen, Svärd, and Estes.144 This is a good example of how the
biographical hypothesis is now not only assumed by most scholars, but is also
used a base from which to undertake other interesting lines of further research.
Thus, unlike the case with Matthew, Mark, and especially Luke, the bio-
graphical genre of John’s gospel quickly became the new scholarly consensus at
the start of the new millennium, led especially by the work of Lincoln, Keener,
Bauckham, and Carter. This was then taken up by younger scholars who as-
sumed John’s biographical genre as a starting point for their further research.
The main attempt to restate the former form-critical consensus has been led
by Ashton, but better attention to genre theory shows that his designation of
“apocalyptic” would be modal at best, while John’s actual genre remains that of
ancient biography.
5. Conclusion
Summing up, this exhaustive survey of the last two decades of gospel scholarship
with regard to all four gospels notes a tendency to go in three phases: first, the
restatement of traditional views in the early years of the millennium by some
scholars (e. g., Luz, Yarbro Collins, Bovon, Ashton); second, increasing accept-
ance by other major scholars further into the first decade of the new century
(e. g., Stanton, Witherington, Keener, Carter, Bauckham, Parsons, Lincoln, etc.);
thirdly, this was followed by the younger generation of recent PhD and junior
scholars who had always assumed the biographical consensus, and therefore as-
sume it as a base line to develop new lines of research. This pattern can be seen
especially in Matthew and Mark, but perhaps less so in Luke where more tradi-
tional views have held sway longer, while the huge outpourings about the genre
of John demonstrate how the early acceptance of the biographical hypothesis has
led to profitable further research.
C. Other Areas of Gospel Scholarship
This paper has thus far concentrated on the large numbers of gospel commen-
taries since the millennium which have discussed the biographical genre of the
gospels, mostly with very positive results. We now turn, rather more briefly, to
in the Fourth Gospel,” in Larsen, Gospel of John as Genre Mosaic, 84–97, 84 and n. 1, and the
conclusion on 97.
144 A. K. Petersen, “Generic Docetism: From the Synoptic Narrative Gospels to the Johan-
nine Discursive Gospel,” in Larsen, Gospel of John as Genre Mosaic, 99–124, 107 and n. 21;
D. Svärd, “John 12:1–8 as Royal Anointing Scene,” ibid., 249–68, 249 and n. 4, 251 nn. 11–15;
D. Estes, “Rhetorical Peristaseis (Circumstances) in the Prologue of John,” ibid., 191–208, 191
and nn. 1 and 3, and see also 194 n. 12.
other areas of gospel scholarship where the biographical hypothesis is not only
increasingly assumed, but also producing new avenues of research.
1. Gospel Genre and Audience

a. Bauckham and The Gospels for All Christians (1998–2005)
The biographical hypothesis also sparked the debate about the gospels’ social
setting and their audience, initially through Richard Bauckham’s provocative
lecture at the 1995 British New Testament Conference in Bangor, arguing that the
theories about the gospels being written for specific communities, the so-called
“Matthean community” or “Johannine community,” which were hermetically
(or even hermeneutically) sealed from one another, rested upon a genre mistake
of treating the gospels as though they were letters to specific churches.145 Using
the biographical hypothesis to examine the gospel audiences rather than specific
“communities” also raised issues about the gospels’ social context and function,
as well as the setting of their production, delivery, and publication. The book
also stimulated sharp responses from Philip F. Esler and David C. Sim,146 and
led to a fascinating session at the SBL in Atlanta November 2003,147 at which
Margaret M. Mitchell used patristic evidence to argue that the gospels were as-
sociated with different audiences, if not communities.148
b. Klink, Vine, and the Audience of the Gospels (2005–2014)

This debate has continued to produce more new work, especially Klink’s
collection of essays on The Audience of the Gospels, including most notably
Bauckham’s response to Mitchell’s paper about the patristic evidence.149 In this
essay, Bauckham clarifies that his critique is directed at the claim that the gos-
pels were written within and for specific communities and are to be interpreted
through the reconstruction of those Johannine or Matthean “communities.” He
does not deny that the gospels were written within early Christian churches, as
the early Fathers recognize, but that this “original, specific, localized audience
145 R. Bauckham, “For Whom Were the Gospels Written?,” in idem, Gospels for All Chris-
tians, 9–48, 27–30; see esp. 28 n. 31.
146 P. F. Esler, “Community and Gospel in Early Christianity: A Response to Richard Bauck-
ham’s Gospels for All Christians,” SJT 51 (1998): 235–48; R. Bauckham, “Response to Philip
Esler,” ibid., 249–53; and D. C. Sim, “The Gospels for All Christians? A Response to Richard
Bauckham,” JSNT 84 (2001): 3–27.
147 At this session, I introduced the book’s arguments (in the absence of Bauckham because
of illness), and L. C. A. Alexander, M. Matson, M. M. Mitchell, and T. J. Weeden participated.
148 M. M. Mitchell, “Patristic Counter-Evidence to the Claim That ‘The Gospels Were
Written for All Christians,’” NTS 51 (2005): 36–79.
149 R. Bauckham, “Is There Patristic Counter-Evidence? A Response to Margaret Mitchell,”
in The Audience of the Gospels: The Origin and Function of the Gospels in Early Christianity, ed.
E. W. Klink III, LNTS 353 (London: T&T Clark, 2010), 68–110.
would not be hermeneutically relevant.”150 He then gives an extensive analysis

of Mitchell’s “counter-evidence,” looking at Clement and Mark, Papias, and
Matthew, and other patristic exegesis of the gospels to restate his basic argu-
ment that the gospels “are not the sort of literature that deals with the spe-
cific issues of a localized audience in the way that, for example, 1 Corinthians
does.”151 Klink completed his doctoral research under Bauckham at St Andrews
on the audience of the fourth gospel in 2005,152 but his introductory essay here
traces the wider debate about the genre of the gospels and their original au-
diences from the initial reactions by scholars like Esler and Sim to its applica-
tion to Pauline letters by David G. Horrell.153 Other chapters include Michael
F. Bird on the implications of Bauckham’s thesis for the non-canonical gospels,
Justin Marc Smith taking further my contribution about the implications of the
biographical genre of the gospels for their audiences, Craig Blomberg’s sugges-
tion about an intermediary position between specific communities and wider
audiences for all Christians, and a final article from Adele Reinhartz on the re-
ception of this argument among NT scholars and its possible consequences.154
A concluding chapter summarizes all the essays and indicates possible lines for
further research.
Cedric E. W. Vine’s monograph about the audience of Matthew summarizes
Bauckham’s argument and the other contributions to The Gospels for All Chris-
tians, noting that “the Gospels’ genre is deemed to be that of Graeco-Roman bios
and as such they would have been intended for a wider audience,” but “defining
genre does not equate to establishing authorial intention.”155 However, Vine puts
all discussion of genre aside, and prefers instead to discuss characterization
and plot, the role of Peter, orality and performance, and assumptions about the
heterogeneity of gospel audiences; he ends with several “fruitful avenues for fur-
ther investigation,” such as audience dynamics and how they function, the open
150 Bauckham, “Is There Patristic Counter-Evidence?,” 69 (emphasis original).

151 Bauckham, “Is There Patristic Counter-Evidence?,” 109.
152 Klink, Sheep of the Fold (see the discussion in § B.4.b above, pp. 29–30).
153 D. G. Horrell, “The Letters to All Christians? Were There Pauline Churches?” (keynote
presentation, British New Testament Conference, Liverpool, September 2005); subsequently
revised as “Pauline Churches or Early Christian Churches? Unity, Disagreement, and the
Eucharist,”’ in Einheit der Kirche im Neuen Testament: Dritte europäische orthodox-westliche
Exegetenkonferenz in Sankt Petersburg, 24.–31. August 2005, ed. A. A. Alexeev, C. Karakolis, and
U. Luz, WUNT 218 (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck 2008), 185–203.
154 M. F. Bird, “Sectarian Gospels for Sectarian Christians? The Non-Canonical Gospels
and Bauckham’s The Gospels for All Christians,” in Klink, Audience of the Gospels, 27–48; J. M.
Smith, “About Friends, by Friends, for Others: Author-Subject Relationships in Contemporary
Greco-Roman Biographies,” ibid., 153–66; C. L. Blomberg, “The Gospels for Specific Com-
munities and All Christians,” ibid., 111–33; A. Reinhartz, “Gospel Audiences: Variations on a
Theme,” ibid., 134–52.
155 C. E. W. Vine, The Audience of Matthew: An Appraisal of the Local Audience Thesis,
LNTS 496 (London: Bloomsbury T&T Clark, 2014), 5, 8.
nature of the Matthean Jesus’s teachings, the nature of discipleship, and inves-
tigation into “reconstructing plausible reception scenarios” of the gospels,156 all
of which require attention to genre.
c. Smith and Why Βίος? (2015)

Justin Marc Smith’s contribution to Klink’s collection about the implications of
the biographical hypothesis for the gospels’ audiences is further developed in his
revised version of his PhD, originally begun under Bauckham at St Andrews.157
His discussion of genres and sub-genres with regard to the typologies of ancient
biography leads him to put forward a new four-fold typology based on the
author’s relationship to their subject (contemporary or non-contemporary) and
to their audience (open or focused), suggesting that the gospels are examples of
contemporary-focused biographies. This is followed by an analysis of the patris-
tic evidence about gospel audiences, and a comparison with the non-canonical
gospels, before Smith concludes that “the genre of ancient biography was the
genre best suited to imparting the words and deeds of Jesus to the widest possible
audience.”158
Thus in 2004, I suggested that the biographical hypothesis was leading to
interesting debate about the supposed communities for which the gospels were
written, and the beginning of a greater emphasis on their audiences; the decade
and a half since has borne this out with continuing debate and lots of possibil-
ities for further research and scholarship, which shows no sign of abating any
time soon.
2. The Genre of Acts

a. Continuing Debate (2004–2011)
In the conclusion of the original 1992 edition, I gave some brief consideration to
the genre of Acts, arguing that the borders between the genres of historiography,
monograph, and biography are blurred and flexible, and they are differentiated
only by internal features such as subject or focus. Richard I. Pervo argued for
Acts to share the genre of the ancient novel, but his equation that “the novel
= material + manner + style + structure” is very unsatisfactory as a means of
identifying genre.159 I therefore concluded that “it is possible that Acts, like the
gospel, is linked to βίος literature, either as a list of the Lives of the main sub-
156 Vine, Audience of Matthew, 204–7.

157 J. M. Smith, Why Βίος? On the Relationship between Gospel Genre and Implied Audiences,
LNTS 518 (London: Bloomsbury T&T Clark, 2015).
158 Smith, Why Βίος?, 212.
159 R. I. Pervo, Profit with Delight: The Literary Genre of the Acts of the Apostles (Philadel-
phia: Fortress, 1987), 114.
ject’s followers,160 or as a βίος of the church, in the manner of Dicaearchus’ bio-

graphical work on Greece.”161
In 2004, we returned to these themes with all the debates between Alexander,
Sterling, Cancik, Yarbro Collins, and others such as Marshall and Bruce,162
noting Talbert’s argument for a biographical genre of Acts,163 and further work
done on Acts and its genre by scholars like Daniel Marguerat and Loveday Al-
exander, as well as discussion in commentaries from Spencer, Fitzmyer, and
Witherington. We concluded:
Clearly, the issues of genre relating to Luke and Acts will continue to be debated. Most
scholars seem to accept the obvious point that Luke’s genre belongs with that of the other
gospels, as we argued originally – but this is complicated by how one sees Acts. Our bio-
graphical understanding of Luke continues to have relevance to the debates about Acts,
not least because of the biographical interest shown in its heroes like Peter and Paul.164
Certainly, the genres of Luke and Acts “continue to be debated” over the last two
decades. Richard Pervo returned to the issue in the last few pages of his The Mys-
tery of Acts in 2008.165 Unfortunately, he represents the issue as being primarily
concerned with the question of historicity and truth, fact, or fiction and treats
genre merely as about classification – “where ancient readers would shelve this
book,” going through the main possibilities within ancient historiography, be-
fore returning to his preferred option of “historical novel.”
Meanwhile, Loveday Alexander produced a collection of many of her es-
says looking at Acts as a classicist,166 including an interesting introduction, “On
a Roman Bookstall,” looking at Acts in its ancient literary context and reviewing
the debate over the previous two decades since she first became involved in
studying it as a classicist. In this she notes that in the early 1990s my original
edition “was beginning to reawaken interest in ancient biography as a genre for
the Gospels,” and that it also contributed to the “reader-oriented perspective”
linking her essays because of the chapter on genre theory as a contract between
authors and readers.167
160 As C. H. Talbert suggests in Literary Patterns, Theological Themes, and the Genre of
Luke-Acts, SBLMS 20 (Missoula, MT: Scholars Press, 1975), 125–43; idem, What Is a Gospel?
The Genre of the Canonical Gospels (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1977), 134.
161 Burridge, What Are the Gospels?, 238; see also 70 for Dicaearchus’s “life” of Greece.
162 Burridge, What are the Gospels?, 275–79.
163 C. H. Talbert, “The Acts of the Apostles: Monograph or Bios?,” in History, Literature,
and Society in the Book of Acts, ed. B. Witherington III (Cambridge: Cambridge University
Press, 1996), 58–72, 64, 70.
164 Burridge, What are the Gospels?, 279.
165 R. I. Pervo, The Mystery of Acts: Unraveling Its Story (Santa Rosa, CA: Polebridge, 2008),
164–71.
166 L. C. A. Alexander, Acts in Its Ancient Literary Context: A Classicist Looks at the Acts of
the Apostles, LNTS 298 (London: T&T Clark, 2005).
167 Alexander, “On a Roman Bookstall: Reading Acts in Its Ancient Literary Context,” in
Thomas E. Phillips summarized the main proposals for the genre of Acts, dis-
cussing the genres of ancient biography (Talbert and my work), novel (Pervo),
epic (MacDonald), or historiography (Aune, Balch, Brodie, Sterling) and con-
cluding that “currently the tendency of scholarship appears to be moving in
the direction of understanding Acts as a mixture of genres.”168 Mikeal Parsons
similarly has a brief paragraph in the introduction to his Paideia commentary
concluding that none of the suggested genres “has emerged as the critical opinio
communis; rather the emerging consensus seems to be that Acts represents a
blending of genres.”169 On the other hand, Douglas Campbell adopts my sugges-
tion of Acts as a biography of the early church in his discussion about using
Paul’s letters to reconstruct his biography.170
b. Alexander Festschrift and SBL 2011

My contribution to Alexander’s Festschrift and its accompanying session at SBL
in San Francisco in 2011 begins with an analysis of how the debate about the
genre of Acts had come to the fore over the two decades since the publication of
the two SNTS monographs by Alexander and myself, and concluded that “Only
by considering all the features together, especially with analysis of the subject
and focus, can we distinguish between, for example, when Tacitus is composing
historiography (Annals), geographical-ethnographical monograph (Germania),
or biography (Agricola).”171 Therefore, I decided to repeat my initial research
on the gospels and analyze Acts against all nineteen generic features. As two
medium-length single-scroll narrative works, thought by most scholars to be
written by the same author, both Luke and Acts inevitably shared a similar ap-
proach to many of the generic features, such as title and opening features, formal
“external features” such as mode of representation (prose narrative), size and
length (19,428 and 18,382 words respectively), structure, scale, literary units, use
of sources, methods of characterization, as well as “internal features” of content
including setting, topics, style, atmosphere, quality of characterization, social
setting, and authorial intention. The allocation of space, with the large concen-
tration of 32.3 % of Acts to Paul’s final journey, including his trials, is not unlike
similar concentrations found in ancient biographies, and is extremely close to
John’s allocation of 33 % to Jesus’s final hours, trial, death, and resurrection, and
only somewhat larger than Luke’s allocation of 24.9 % to Jesus’s final week in
eadem, Acts in Its Ancient Literary Context, 1–20, 7, 20 n. 76, referring to Burridge, What Are the
Gospels?, 25–52 (ch. 2).
168 T. E. Phillips, “The Genre of Acts: Moving Toward a Consensus?” CurBR 4 (2006):
365–96.
169 M. C. Parsons, Acts, Paideia (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Academic, 2008), 15.
170 D. A. Campbell, The Quest for Paul’s Gospel: A Suggested Strategy, JSNTSup 274 (Lon-
don: T&T Clark, 2005), 20–22.
171 Burridge, “Genre of Acts,” 9–10.
Jerusalem and the events around his death. In both cases, to devote a third or
quarter of the space available to the final journey or trial of a person is a clear
indicator of biographical genre.
Finally, I repeated the exercise of counting every verb, including participles
and infinitives, by hand, listing them by “five-bar” gates on a piece of paper, and
using these numbers to draw a pie chart comparable to those done over twenty
years previously for the gospels. This had demonstrated how ancient biography
was dominated by the deeds and words of the main character, so that Jesus is the
subject of 17.9 % of the verbs in Luke, with a further 36.8 % given to his teachings
and sayings, totalling 54.7 % for his deeds and words.172 Acts is not an account
of a single person, but it is concerned with the deeds and words of a particular
group of people, namely the early disciples with their leaders, especially Peter
and Paul. If we add the totals for the activities of all the disciples and named
apostles together with the totals of their speeches, we find that just over 57 % of
the verbs of Acts are devoted to the deeds and words of the first Christians. The
remarkable similarity between the total of Jesus’s deeds and words (54.7 % in
the gospel), and those of his early followers (57 % in Acts), suggests that Acts is a
biography of the early church or the first Christians.
Therefore this study concluded that both Acts and Luke’s gospel share
sufficient “family resemblance” across all nineteen generic features to be close
cousins if not siblings. If Luke’s gospel is a biography of Jesus’s earthly life, minis-
try, death, and resurrection – what Jesus “began to do and teach” (Acts 1:1) –
then Acts is a biography of the early church, if not a “biographical monograph”
of the exalted Jesus’s continuing ministry through the deeds and words, lives and
ministries of his closest disciples – what Jesus continues “to do and teach.”173
c. Subsequent Scholarship (2011–2017)

The first volume of Craig Keener’s magnum opus on Acts has no less than 638
pages of introduction, before 400 pages of commentary on just Acts 1:1–2:47.174
Well over half of this introduction is devoted to the issue of genre, including
“proposed genres for Acts,” such as travel narrative, biography, novel, and
epic,175 and “Acts as a work of ancient historiography,”176 noting the overlap with
biography, which “moved historiography in a more biographic direction.”177 The
next six chapters, 4–9, consider various aspects of historiography, including its
172 See “Appendix I: Analysis Charts of Verb Subjects,” in Burridge, What Are the Gospels?,
308–21, esp. 320 for the analysis of Luke.
173 See Burridge, “Genre of Acts,” 13–15; idem, What Are the Gospels?, 353–55.
174 C. S. Keener, Acts: An Exegetical Commentary, 4 vols. (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker
Academic, 2012–2015).
175 Keener, Acts, 1:51–89.
176 Keener, Acts, 1:90–115.
177 Keener, Acts, 1:111.
character, purpose, historical utility as a source, speeches, and signs.178 Finally,

Keener concludes:
Ancients sometimes mixed genres, and historical biography and history that are focused
on significant individuals’ words and actions are closely enough related that distinctions
based on our theoretical classifications (and those of ancient writers) may break down in
practice at this point. It is, in fact, the blending of these genres displays Luke’s distinctive
genius.179
Sean A. Adams’s thesis, published in the SNTS Monograph Series,180 begins by

arguing that “the genre of a work is fundamentally important for interpretation,”
and surveys the various possibilities for the genre of Acts, such as different forms
of history (general, political, apologetic), or novel/romance, or epic, concluding
with biography. The second chapter provides a good survey of genre theory, both
ancient and modern, stressing that it is fluid and flexible, followed by an account
of ancient individual Lives and what he terms “collected biographies” – the Lives
of famous men, philosophers, sophists, particularly the succession narratives
within various schools, sects, or traditions. The heart of the book is an analysis
of Acts following the sequence of the nineteen generic features which I identified
originally. With regard to the allocation of space, he writes “although I value
Burridge’s attention to the role that verb subjects have on identifying a work’s
subject, another way of determining the subject is to evaluate the allocation of
space attributed to each character.” After identifying the total number of words
allocated to each main character as percentages of the whole, Adams concludes:
These figures based on allocation of narrative space do not undermine the veracity of
Burridge’s verb-analysis. Rather, they are complementary and portray some similarities.
First, Paul and Peter are the key individuals in both analyses. Second, both studies indicate
that the primary focus of Acts is the deeds and words of the first Christians.181
The fact that we get similar results from different, if complementary, methods
of analysis should provide more confidence in our conclusions. Two substantial
chapters on “characterisation in Acts” and Peter, Paul, and the ending of Acts
bring us to his final conclusion that “understanding the genre of Acts as collected
biography provides the best interpretive payoff and affords new and exciting
avenues for future investigation.”182
Alan J. Bale’s 2012 thesis provides a complementary study to those above,
with an introduction on the “problem of classification.”183 Part I, the larger half,
178 Keener, Acts, 1:116–382.
179 Keener, Acts, 1:553–58 (§ 16.II, “Distinct Genres?”), 553, 554.
180 S. A. Adams, The Genre of Acts and Collected Biography, SNTSMS 156 (Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press, 2013).
181 Adams, Genre of Acts, 129–32, 132.
182 Adams, Genre of Acts, 256.
183 A. J. Bale, Genre and Narrative Coherence in the Acts of the Apostles, LNTS 514 (London:
T&T Clark, 2015), xviii.
comprises four chapters on preliminaries, the various proposals, genre theory,

and a discussion of the relation of history and fiction, and introduces his con-
cept of “narrative coherence,” by which an audience might “configure” a text.184
Part II attempts to explain how “configuring the narrative of Acts” will lead to
“coherence,” through three studies on the “ambiguous oracle in Acts 1.6,” the
“configuration of Paul’s apostolic status,” and “comedy and characterisation in
Acts.” The final chapter provides Bale’s summary and conclusions, and some
final “potential avenues of future research.”185
Martin Friis’s paper, originally given at the conference on the “Rewritten
Bible” in Roskilde, Denmark in June 2014, begins, “recent scholarship on Acts
has demonstrated that the work is not easily identifiable with any one ancient lit-
erary genre,” and concludes that Luke-Acts’ “narration might well be considered
to be within the literary bounds of the ancient historiographical tradition.”186
Similar conclusions are reached in an interesting recent article by Daniel Lyn-
wood Smith and Zachary Lundin Kostopoulos, who agree with Keener’s com-
ment that “in the end, Luke probably mixed genres, as ancient literature often
did,” and conclude that “the notion of a ‘mixed genre’ may sound like scholarly
capitulation to the complexities surrounding the genre of Luke-Acts, yet Keener’s
proposal reflects the reality of ancient literary activity.”187
What emerges from this analysis is that there are indeed many generic
features which are shared between genera proxima like biography, monograph
and historiography – but careful distinction of genre and mode can also help
at overlapping and flexible boundaries where genres meet. Tacitus’s Agricola
is “historical biography,” because of its focus on one person demonstrated by
our analysis of the subjects of the verbs, while the same author’s Annals or His-
tories are “biographical historiography” because he narrates the history of Rome
through an inter-connected tapestry focused on the characters of various em-
perors, politicians, and generals in due course. Similarly, Luke’s gospel touches
down on the side of βίος, along with the other three canonical gospels including
John because of the focus on the words and deeds of Jesus, while his second
volume, Acts, can be termed “biographical monograph” because of the focus
on the deeds and words of the first Christian leaders, as demonstrated by our
analysis of the subjects of the verbs in the gospels and Acts – or even, what Jesus
continues to “do and teach” through them in Acts.
184 Bale, Genre and Narrative Coherence, 13–119.

185 Bale, Genre and Narrative Coherence, 123–221, 218, 221.
186 M. Friis, “Paul in the Presence of Power: Depictions of Social Interactions in Acts and in
the Hellenistic Historians,” in Luke’s Literary Creativity, ed. J. T. Nielsen and M. Müller, LNTS
550 (London: Bloomsbury T&T Clark, 2016), 251–65, 251–52, 256.
187 D. L. Smith and Z. L. Kostopoulos, “Biography, History and the Genre of Luke-Acts,”
NTS 63 (2017): 390–410, 390, 394.
Thus it is clear from all this discussion of scholarship in the last fifteen years
since our second edition that debates about the genre of Acts are not only alive
and well, but also fruitful – and if we are moving towards some kind of consensus
around an overlapping, fused “mixing” of biography and historical monograph
on the boundaries of the two, this is also providing plenty of various “avenues”
for future research as all the scholars discussed above concluded their different
works.
3. Roman Catholic Reactions

One of the very first reviews of my work appeared in the Catholic Biblical
Quarterly (1993), where Jerome H. Neyrey described it as “an immensely
learned volume … a superb survey of the topic, but also breaks new ground in
its nuanced reading of ancient texts and its literary model.”188 This appreciation
became a harbinger for what was to follow.
a. Italian Translation and Barcelona Conference (2012)

An Italian translation of the second edition appeared within a few years,189 but its
significance only became apparent when a symposium on “Jesus Tradition and the
Gospels” was held to mark and celebrate the twentieth anniversary of the first pub-
lication at the Theological Faculty of Catalonia in Barcelona in 2012. Organized
and hosted by the Rev. Prof. Armand Puig i Tàrrech, it featured a range of scholars
from across Europe, including an opening keynote on “Biography as the Gospels’
Literary Genre” from myself,190 while other contributors included Samuel Byrskog
(from Lund), Santiago Guijarro Oporto (Salamanca), Christian Grappe (Stras-
bourg), Thomas Söding (Bochum), and our hosts in Barcelona, including Agustí
Borrell, Begonya Palau, and of course, Armand Puig i Tàrrech himself on the
parables.191 The ensuing discussions proved most interesting, and stimulated our
desire to continue this work on the biographical genre of the gospels.
b. The Ratzinger Prize and Conference (2013)

However, I was completely unprepared when I was asked if I would accept
the Joseph Ratzinger Prize for 2013 from Pope Francis at the Vatican later that
autumn.192 It was preceded by a three-day conference organized by the Joseph
188 J. H. Neyrey, review of What Are the Gospels?, by R. A. Burridge, CBQ 55 (1993): 361–63.
189 R. A. Burridge, Che cosa sono i vangeli? Studio comparativo con la biografia greco-
romana, trans. F. de Nicola, Introduzione allo studio della Bibbia Supplementi 37 (Brescia:
Paideia Editrice, 2008).
190 R. A. Burridge, “Biography as the Gospels’ Literary Genre,” RCT 38/1 (2013): 9–30.
191 The rest of RCT 38/1 (2013) contains the other papers from the conference.
192 In fact, since the letter arrived unannounced at my office on my birthday, everybody
thought initially that it might be a practical joke from my students …!
Ratzinger Foundation which took place in the Pontifical Lateran University and
in the Vatican itself on the overall topic of “The Gospels: Historical and Chris-
tological Research.” This conference featured papers from no less than three
eminent Cardinals, their Excellencies Camillo Ruini, Prosper Grech, and Angelo
Amato, as well as main papers from Bernardo Estrada (Holy Cross, Rome), Juan
Chapa (Navarra), Yves Simoens (Pontifical Biblical Institute, Rome), Klaus
Berger (Heidelberg), John P. Meier (Notre Dame), Antonio Pitta (Lateran,
Rome), Thomas Söding (Bochum), as well as a number of other shorter con-
tributions in sessions including Armand Puig i Tàrrech, Richard Bauckham,
Stanley Porter, Craig Evans, and Ermenegildo Manicardi.193
I was honored to deliver the keynote address on “Graeco-Roman Biographies
and the Gospel Literary Genre” in which I outlined the debate about gospel
genre, the arguments for the biographical hypothesis and suggested some impli-
cations for further research.194 However, I was particularly keen to set all of this
material in the context of the work of the young Joseph Ratzinger as a peritus,
a theological expert consultant, to Cardinal Frings of Cologne throughout the
whole of Vatican II, and his later interest as Pope in and writing about Jesus and
the gospels, culminating in his three-volume biography of Jesus of Nazareth.
At Vatican II, Ratzinger had worked primarily on Dei Verbum, the Dogmatic
Constitution on Divine Revelation; although it was one of the first documents
to be considered, this was not actually finished until the very end of the council,
being finally solemnly promulgated by Pope Paul VI on 18 November 1965.195 It
is significant that most of the later 1969 commentary on Dei Verbum was written
by Ratzinger himself,196 including a fascinating introduction about the various
drafts (more than any reconstruction of the synoptic problem!) through which
it went before reaching its final state, as Ratzinger’s commentary makes clear.197
After Joseph Ratzinger became Pope Benedict XVI, he convened the Synod
of Bishops in October 2008, resulting in Verbum Domini (“the Word of the
Lord”), the post-Synodal Exhortation on the Word of God (2010), the title
paying homage to Vatican II’s Dei Verbum (“the Word of God”).198 Even before
193 They are all published in vol. 1 of The Gospels, History and Christology: The Search of
Joseph Ratzinger – Benedict XVI, ed. B. Estrada, E. Manicardi, and A. Puig i Tàrrech, 2 vols.
(Rome: Libreria Editrice Vaticana, 2013); vol. 2 contains thirteen short papers produced along-
side the main conference, but not actually delivered in Rome.
194 In Estrada, Manicardi, and Puig i Tàrrech, Gospels, History and Christology, 1:151–98.
195 See the official English translation on the Vatican website, http://www.vatican.va/
archive/hist_councils/ii_vatican_council/documents/vat-ii_const_19651118_dei-verbum_
en.html.
196 H. Vorgrimler, ed., Commentary on the Documents of Vatican II, trans. L. Adolphus,
K. Smyth, and R. Strachan, 5 vols. (London: Burns & Oates; New York: Herder & Herder,
1969), 3:155–272.
197 Vorgrimler, Commentary on the Documents of Vatican II, 3:155–65.
198 Benedict XVI, Verbum Domini: Post-Synodal Apostolic Exhortation on the Word of God
(London: Catholic Truth Society, 2010).
he became Pope, Ratzinger was writing his own account of Jesus of Nazareth
during the summers of 2003 and 2004; following his election as Pope in 2005,
he gave “every free moment” to working on it until he decided to publish the
first volume in September 2006 with the subtitle, From the Baptism in the Jordan
to the Transfiguration.199 In his foreword, Pope Benedict describes his purpose
and his method, noting how difficult it was “when I was growing up” within
the mainstream of German NT Scholarship with its stress on form criticism
leading to the gap between the so-called “historical Jesus” on the one hand and
the “Christ of faith” on the other, and all the debates surrounding the relation-
ship between the two. The result was that “the real object of faith – the figure of
Jesus – became increasingly obscured and blurred” and “receded even further
into the distance”; he lamented that “intimate friendship with Jesus, on which
everything depends, is in danger of clutching at thin air.”200 Therefore, while
the historical-critical method “is and remains an indispensable dimension of ex-
egetical work,” we need to go beyond its limits to “a Christological hermeneutic
which sees Jesus Christ as the key to the whole.”201 This echoes my conclusions
to the first 1992 edition of my book that this biographical genre “has distinct
hermeneutical implications for gospel studies, reaffirming the centrality of the
person of Jesus of Nazareth.”202 The similarity of these two conclusions, each
written without knowledge of the other, is striking.
When Pope Francis began the prize ceremony by asking formally why they
were going to do this (tactfully omitting to mention that I was not even a Roman
Catholic!), H. E. Cardinal Camillo Ruini delivered his citation that the award
was because my “great contribution” had restored “the indissoluble connection,
both historical and theological, between the gospels and Jesus of Nazareth” (“un
grande contributo al riconoscimento, storico e teologico, del legame inscindibile
dei Vangeli a Gesù di Nazaret”).203 In the light of all form-critical influences over
most of the twentieth century, it is understandable why it was seen as innovative,
especially in the light of Ratzinger/Benedict’s lament about losing Jesus in “thin
air.” As a Ratzinger prize winning laureate, I keep up the connection with the
Foundation and share in the continuing research and debate, including a short-
er, revised version of my keynote paper for the Foundation’s collection to mark
Pope Benedict’s 90th birthday in 2017.204
199 J. Ratzinger (Benedict XVI), Jesus of Nazareth: From the Baptism in the Jordan to the
Transfiguration, trans. A. J. Walker (New York: Doubleday; London: Bloomsbury, 2007), xxiv.
200 Ratzinger, Jesus of Nazareth: From the Baptism, xi–xii.
201 Ratzinger, Jesus of Nazareth: From the Baptism, xv–xix.
202 The original conclusion to Burridge, What Are the Gospels?; see ibid., 251.
203 The speeches and citation were reproduced in L’Osservatore Romano (October 27,
2013): 5.
204 R. A. Burridge, “Biographies of Jesus: Joseph Ratzinger and the Gospels,” in Coopera-
tores Veritatis: Tributes to Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI on His 90th Birthday, ed. P. Azzaro and
F. Lombardi (Rome: Libreria Editrice Vaticana, 2017), 47–88.
Meanwhile, it has been interesting to see how continuing work by Catholic

scholars has built upon the biographical genre of the gospels, the most recent
example of which is a monograph from Jean-Noël Aletti, from the Pontifical Bib-
lical Institute in Rome. At its heart is a substantial essay of just over 100 pages in
which Aletti hopes to show that
beginning with the necessity of showing that the genre of the Gospels is biographical, it
will be possible to clarify and to resolve some enigmas and, let us hope, to make clear the
literary and theological genius of these anonymous narrators who for a longtime [sic] have
been thought to be storytellers without talent.205
He begins with a discussion of ancient biographies at the time of the gospels

which is heavily dependent upon our work, including reproducing our genre
map of bios and its neighboring genres,206 and following our comparison with
Philo, Plutarch, and Suetonius, before turning to examine Mark, Matthew and
Luke in turn. He starts this by noting that “the findings of Burridge’s monograph,
mentioned several times in the preceding chapter, have possibly had the most
influence on the research and have furthered a new paradigm.”207 Aletti’s partic-
ular contribution is to examine the “decisive role” played by the anagnorisis, or
“recognition” of Jesus, particularly as Matthew and Luke take Mark’s narrative
and make it more biographical through the infancy and passion/resurrection
narratives, drawing on OT biblical models. The English edition of this book,
though not the French and Italian originals, also includes an interesting second
half analyzing two gospel pericopae, Mark 7:24–30 and Luke 15:11–32.
Thus, over the last twenty-five years from Neyrey’s early review through the
Ratzinger Prize to the most recent offering from Aletti, it is clear that Roman
Catholic biblical scholarship has been grappling with the implications of the
biographical hypothesis, particularly with regard to their specific Christological
concerns, both in reaction to the earlier impact of form-critical views, and also
pursuing the development of top-level academic and critical research in response
to the work of Vatican II, especially the seminal Dei Verbum, the Dogmatic Con-
stitution on Divine Revelation.
D. Further Implications for New Research
As we come to the end of this long and exhaustive survey of scholarship about
the genre of the gospels, we look ahead briefly at what several scholars have de-
scribed as “new avenues” for research arising from the implications of the bio-
graphical hypothesis.
205 J.‑N. Aletti, The Birth of the Gospels as Biographies: With Analyses of Two Challenging
Pericopae, trans. P. M. Meyer, AnBib Studia 10 (Rome: Gregorian & Biblical Press, 2017), x.
206 Aletti, Birth of the Gospels, 12; Burridge, What Are the Gospels?, 64.
207 Aletti, Birth of the Gospels, 25.
1. Gospel Genre and Theology (2012–2016)

a. Markham, First Things, and Future Research
The prestigious North American journal, First Things, asked not a biblical scholar,
but a theologian and ethicist, Ian Markham, an Episcopal priest and dean and
president of Virginia Theological Seminary, to explain “Richard Burridge’s
Achievement” in being awarded the Ratzinger Prize for their readership.208
Markham began by outlining the previous form-critical “unique” consensus, and
its impact on Pope Benedict as noted in the introduction to his biography of Jesus,
before summarizing my “groundbreaking book,” which set out the biographical
argument “with precision and overwhelming evidence.” He then went on to “un-
packing the implications of reading the gospels as Greco-Roman biographies” as
demonstrated in Four Gospels, One Jesus?, followed by the “even more remarkable
and interesting” Imitating Jesus. Markham argues that “New Testament scholars
and theologians alike are working hard now to absorb Burridge’s insights,”
particularly those in dogmatic theology concerned about how to distinguish and
connect the “Eternal Word made flesh and the written Word of Scripture.”
Markham had made this same point in more academic detail in his con-
tribution to the SBL 2009 panel on Imitating Jesus: “Burridge is right, genre is the
key, but what he overlooks is that it is not simply a literary key, but a theological
key,” especially when applied to a debate about Christology and the incarnation
which he had been having with his Muslim students. Finally, he returned to
this theme with his conclusion to First Things that “Richard Burridge has set an
agenda that will provide decades of work for biblical scholars, historians, and
practical theologians.”209 Can this extraordinary conclusion can be borne out by
the recent – and forthcoming – work of other scholars?
b. “Reading Wisely” with Pennington (2012)

Another of Bauckham’s PhD students, Jonathan Pennington, attempts to elu-
cidate the theological implications of their biographical genre of the gospels in
his book, Reading the Gospels Wisely. The first part, “Clearing Ground, Digging
Deep, and Laying a Good Foundation,” discusses the literary nature and genre of
the gospels, beginning with a brief summary of literary genre theory, reflecting
our approach through a range of generic features and conventions to provide
a “family resemblance,” but in a way which is flexible and overlaps with other
neighboring genres, before going on to outline the debate about the gospels as
bioi, or Greek biographies, about which he says “for the following discussion
I rely on the analysis of Burridge’s What Are the Gospels?”210
208 Markham, “Richard Burridge’s Achievement,” 22–24.

209 Markham, “Richard Burridge’s Achievement,” 24.
210 J. T. Pennington, Reading the Gospels Wisely: A Narrative and Theological Introduction
However, he wants to go further, what he terms “Bioi plus – towards a more

comprehensive understanding of the gospels,” especially their “virtue-forming
purpose” and other implications. Therefore he analyzes why we need the gospels
(“Or, why Saint Paul is not enough”!) and the “joy and angst” of having four
different gospels, where he again draws upon my work, this time repeating
our analogy to four pictures of Winston Churchill, an illustration which he
recognizes that I develop “to great effect” in Four Gospels, One Jesus?, leading
to our use of the four traditional symbols of the evangelists, the lion, ox, eagle,
and human face.211 The second part of the book develops a narrative approach
to the gospels as stories, and its hermeneutical challenges, before coming in part
3 to the theological implications for reading the four gospels wisely in “applying
and teaching the gospels,” thus guiding our worship and preaching, where he
concludes finally that the gospels are the “archway of the canon,” using the
image of the keystone. I welcome both his acceptance of the biographical genre
of the gospels and his attempt to develop further the theological implications,
particularly pastorally for our worship, teaching, preaching, and understanding
of discipleship.
c. Lincoln and the Virgin Birth (2013)

Another example of the impact of the biographical hypothesis upon theological
reflection is seen in Andrew Lincoln’s work on the virgin birth and the infancy
narratives, Born of a Virgin? In chapter 3, “What Are the Infancy Narratives?,” he
argues for the parallels between these stories in Matthew and Luke and similar
stories in ancient biographies. Lincoln begins his discussion by making it clear
that, while the gospels have a distinctive “good news” influenced by the Jewish
scriptures, “the consensus view about the canonical gospels as a whole is that …
they find their closest literary analogy in the genre of ancient biography.”212 After
a discussion of their various generic similarities, Lincoln concentrates on “what
readers would have expected ancient biographies to relate about their subjects’
beginnings,” comparing it to what we say about the “topics of ancestry, birth,
boyhood, and education in the Synoptics.”213
After stories about Romulus and Remus, Augustus, Plato, Apollonius,
Theseus, Cicero, and Alexander, Lincoln concludes that “major elements in the
infancy narratives of Matthew and Luke bear a remarkable resemblance to what
is to be found in Graeco-Roman biographies,” and he stresses that this is not
about a “history of religions” approach, but rather “it is primarily a literary point
(Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Academic, 2012), 22 and n. 7; see esp. ch. 2, “What Are the Gospels?
Understanding the ‘Gospel’ Genre,” 18–35.
211 Pennington, Reading the Gospels Wisely, 70–71 and nn. 40, 43.
212 A. T. Lincoln, Born of a Virgin? Reconceiving Jesus in the Bible, Tradition, and Theology
(London: SPCK; Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 2013), 57–58; see also n. 7.
213 Lincoln, Born of a Virgin?, 60; see n. 10.
about genre and its implications.”214 This is therefore a good example where our
work on the biographical genre of the gospels has not just impacted on another
biblical scholar’s approach to the gospels, but also the stress on genre has led him
into other areas of dogmatics and systematic theology which we never envisaged.
2. Gospel Genre and Historical Research (2016 – and Beyond!)

a. Licona and Plutarch’s Lives (2017)
After these theological implications, Michael R. Licona also sets out to discover
“what we can learn from ancient biography” – but in particular, how it might
apply to the differences between the various accounts in the gospels of the same
or similar events and sayings. Licona quickly turns to “the gospels as biography,”
where he describes the original research behind my work, which he describes as
“the definitive treatment on the subject,” and continues by noting that “today a
growing majority of scholars regard the gospels as Greco-Roman biography.”215
He then outlines the main features which the gospels have in common with
Greco-Roman biography, compared with the absence of Jewish biographies of
sages. Thus the biographical hypothesis in general, and my work in particular,
provide the foundation for all Licona’s work which follows; afterwards, his con-
clusion begins by again noting that “by the beginning of the twenty-first century,
a paradigm shift had occurred” as “the majority of New Testament scholars had
embraced the view of Richard Burridge … that the Gospels belong to the genre
of Greco-Roman biography.”216
As well as our work forming the platform undergirding Licona’s book, his
main research grows out of an observation noted in the original version of What
Are the Gospels?, drawing upon the work of the classicist, Christopher Pelling,
who first fired my interest in ancient biography as my undergraduate tutor at
Oxford, and who then helped my subsequent doctoral research enormously. In
our initial survey of Greco-Roman biography, we saw that
Pelling concluded that six of them [Plutarch’s Lives] were written together at the same
time, drawing on the same sources and information: the Crassus, Pompey, Caesar, Cato
Minor, Brutus, and Antony. Any differences between them must be due to Plutarch’s lit-
erary methods, therefore, and so we can study how he went about his writing and how
much licence he allowed himself.217
214 Lincoln, Born of a Virgin?, 66.

215 M. R. Licona, Why Are There Differences in the Gospels? What We Can Learn from
Ancient Biography (New York: Oxford University Press, 2017), 3.
216 Licona, Why Are There Differences, 197.
217 Burridge, What Are the Gospels?, 65–66, referring to C. B. R. Pelling, “Plutarch’s Method
of Work in the Roman Lives,” JHS 99 (1979): 74–96; idem, “Plutarch’s Adaptation of His Source
Material,” JHS 100 (1980): 127–40.
In his research, Licona added another three Lives – Sertorius, Lucullus, and
Cicero – to the selection, from which he derived no less than thirty-six episodes
which appear at least twice in these nine Lives, six examples of which are narrated
with no differences.
He undertakes a synoptic comparison of the other thirty “pericopes,” from
which he derives a list of Plutarch’s compositional techniques, such as con-
centrating with more detail on whoever is the subject of that particular Life,
shining a “literary spotlight” on a character, conflating or compressing accounts,
transferring actions or sayings from one character to another in a different Life,
displacing events or sayings into a different time or place, redacting them with
different syntax, wordings, numbers, or terms, paraphrasing the same or similar
sayings in different ways, and so forth: “these were standard conventions for
writing history and biography of that day and were practiced by virtually all.”218
Armed with these “compositional techniques,” Licona then turns to examine
sixteen similar “parallel pericopes” in the canonical gospels, concluding:
a very large majority of the differences we have observed could be the result of an evangelist
using a different source or employing the compositional devices that were standard con-
ventions for writing history and biography in his day. Moreover, these differences almost
always appear in the peripheral details.219
He also compares five examples where Plutarch, Sallust, and Tacitus appear
to have altered the chronology of events with five similar examples from the
gospels.220 Finally, his concluding chapter sums up all these arguments to argue
for a “paradigm shift” – similar to that seen by interpreting the gospels as
biographies – not only for more devout conservative readers who assume that
the gospel “authors must have written with the degree of accuracy and almost
forensic precision we desire and expect today,” but also for “critics of a cynical
type” who use such differences to dismiss the gospels entirely.221
Thus, this is a good example of a younger, new scholar not only agreeing
with and assuming the biographical hypothesis, but also using it as the basis
for further research into other questions, such as the historicity of the gospel
accounts, with both a pastoral concern for conservative readers anxious about
the differences as well as an apologetic purpose aimed at dismissive critics.222
218 Licona, Why Are There Differences, 22–111 (ch. 3, “Parallel Pericopes in Plutarch’s
Lives”), 109–10.
219 Licona, Why Are There Differences, 112–84 (ch. 4, “Parallel Pericopes in the Canonical
Gospels”), 184.
220 Licona, Why Are There Differences, 185–96 (ch. 5, “Synthetic Chronological Placement
in the Gospels”).
221 Licona, Why Are There Differences, 197–202, 201.
222 Such apologetic purposes seem to occupy much of Licona’s time and ministerial activity;
see, for example, the interview and debate which he conducted with me on the apologetic radio
show Unbelievable? for Premier Christian Radio, London, broadcast on June 17, 2017: https://
b. Keener’s and Wright’s Biographies and Jesus (2016)

Similar assumptions and concerns lie behind a recent collection of essays on
Biographies and Jesus, edited by Craig S. Keener and his assistant, Edward
T. Wright, a collection of sixteen contributions of “groundbreaking research
from a team of motivated, (mostly) young, and internationally diverse scholars”
drawn from the continents of Africa, Asia, Europe, and North America,223 many
of whom are working on various implications of the biographical hypothesis
with Keener and Wright at Asbury Theological Seminary.
It begins with a detailed introduction from Keener himself in which he notes
that the “majority of scholars today regard the Gospels as ancient biography,”
going so far as to state that “Richard Burridge’s argument has proven so compel-
ling that one reviewer claims that it ought to end any further dissent about the
matter.”224 However, Keener goes on to note that “surprisingly few scholars,
however, have worked to develop the implications of this general consensus for
the question of how we approach the Gospels for historical information about
Jesus,” which therefore becomes the focus for this collection.
The book proper begins by reprinting Steve Walton’s paper about the impact
of my work,225 followed by no less than fourteen other pieces, some from other
published scholars, and some by Keener’s postgraduate students, all exploring
the implications of the biographical theory for further research. The book con-
cludes with an appendix from Keener himself on “memory and oral tradition.”
Obviously, these contributions are, by necessity, brief summaries (ranging
from twenty to forty pages) of mostly new research still being undertaken, but
they amply justify Markham’s verdict that “Richard Burridge has set an agenda
that will provide decades of work for biblical scholars, [and] historians.”226 From
all of this work, Keener sums up that “the essential twofold thesis remains clear:
biographies of recent figures are intended to recount historical information
(normally for edifying purposes); and biographers could exercise a degree of
flexibility in how they recounted that information” before concluding “tradition-
al skeptical and fundamentalist approaches to the Gospels have generally made
the same mistake: judging the Gospels by standards foreign to their genre. This
book is an attempt to provide reasons for a sounder, mediating approach.”227
Both Licona and Keener have noted that comparing the gospels with ancient
biographies has implications for fundamentalists and sceptics alike. It is thus
www.premierchristianradio.com/Shows/Saturday/ Unbelievable/Episodes/ Unbelievable-Why-

are-there-differences-in-the-Gospels-Mike-Licona-Richard-Burridge.
223 Keener and Wright, Biographies and Jesus, 1.
224 Keener and Wright, Biographies and Jesus, 3–4, referring in n. 13 to C. H. Talbert, review
of What Are the Gospels?, by R. A. Burridge, JBL 112 (1993): 714–15.
225 Walton, “What Are the Gospels?”
227 “Closing Words,” in Keener and Wright, Biographies and Jesus, 44–45.
very interesting – and gratifying – to see younger scholars like these taking my
arguments about the biographical hypothesis and developing them further with
so much detailed study of other ancient biographies and the gospels.
c. Keener’s Christobiography (2019)

Given all the references to, and use of my work already noted in, many various
books and commentaries from Keener, it is no surprise that he has been working
on a major new work specifically about what he terms “Christobiography.”228
Here Keener seeks to build upon his brief comments in his introduction and
“Closing Words,” as well as his recent research as anticipated in Biographies and
Jesus. The same two extreme approaches are once again in his sights: “Tradi-
tional skeptical and fundamentalist approaches to the Gospels have generally
committed the same error: judging the Gospels by standards foreign to their
original genre. In this book I have sought to support a more historically sensitive
approach.”229
Keener begins with an introduction where he examines “default expectations”
about the gospels, ancient biography, and history, where he notes that “Richard
Burridge’s widely acclaimed 1992 Cambridge monograph … swiftly and success-
fully shifted the consensus of scholarship about the Gospels.”230 The first main
part considers “Biographies about Jesus,” in which he outlines the debates which
led to the current biographical consensus; the second part explores the vexed
relationship between ancient biography and historiography, noting our work
on the flexibility and “overlapping” of neighboring genres, and considering the
ancients’ expectations about historical information and the use of both recent
and older sources, with particular reference to Luke-Acts as what Keener calls
“biohistory.”
Part III tests the “range of deviation,” drawing on his detailed work on Taci-
tus’s, Suetonius’s, and Plutarch’s accounts of Otho and Galba, and the analyzing
the “flexible” use of literary techniques in ancient biographies, before part IV
considers the particular issues of miracles and a detailed study of the similarities
and distinctiveness of John compared with the synoptic gospels. Finally, part
V discusses “memory studies,” bias, verbatim recall, note-taking, and the kinds
of memories which tend to be preserved, all of which are applied to Jesus as a
teacher and his disciples as eyewitnesses in the light of ancient education and
“Jewish memory,” before concluding with some reflections about how best to
“reform” form criticism for today in the light or recent studies of “traditional
228 C. S. Keener, Christobiography: Memory, History, and the Reliability of the Gospels
(Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 2019); I am extremely grateful to Dr. Keener for allowing me to
see a manuscript of this major and important work in advance.
229 Keener, Christobiography, 497.
230 Keener, Christobiography, 13.
Middle Eastern memory,” particularly over a time period of around eighty years
of “living memory.”
After some 400 pages of detailed argument, he concludes with some “im-
plications of this study.” Keener repeats his final conclusion from Biographies
and Jesus to make it abundantly clear how important the presumption of the
biographical hypothesis is for his work:
I believe that my two most essential primary points are difficult to dispute: in the early em-
pire, normal biographers writing about recent figures attempted to recount or reconstruct
what they believed to be historical information … (normally for edifying purposes); and
biographers could exercise a degree of flexibility in how they recounted that information.
He correctly observes that “the majority of scholars today, despite our diversity
on particulars, lie between these poles” of either assuming a Bultmannian “long
folk tradition,” which doubts “much reliable historical information about Jesus,”
or the other extreme, which is found “less commonly among scholars but not
uncommonly on a popular level,” of the “remarkable gymnastics to harmonize
the Gospels’ chronology and sometimes even their wording.”231 He is, therefore,
right to expect that the biographical genre of the gospels will continue to provide
rich resources for these debates in the years to come.
d. Bond on Mark as Biographer (2020)

Helen K. Bond has now produced a new book, also published by Eerdmans;
originally intended to be about Mark’s passion, it has subsequently expanded
into a treatment of the whole of Mark as “the first biographer of Jesus.”232 As
with Keener, she begins by taking the biographical hypothesis as her starting
point. After an anecdote about an essay written “as a schoolgirl in the 1980s”
which “began with the confident assertion: ‘The gospels are not biographies,’”
she relates briefly the revolution already getting under way, noting that “Richard
Burridge’s monograph What Are the Gospels? … (1992) seemed to settle the
matter. By the mid-1990s there was a measure of broad agreement that what
we have in the first four books of the New Testament are bioi, or lives of Jesus.”
However, she goes on to point out a very interesting fact: “But the practical
results of the identification of the gospels as bioi – the payoff – seems disappoint-
ingly meager. Certainly, it does not seem to have revolutionised gospel interpre-
tation in the manner promised by those caught up in the heady debates of the
1980s.”233
231 All extracted from Keener, Christobiography, 499–501.

232 H. K. Bond, The First Biography of Jesus: Genre and Meaning in Mark’s Gospel (Grand
Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 2020); as with Keener, so here I am extremely grateful to Professor
Bond for allowing me to see an advance draft. I am delighted to welcome its recent publication
as a handsome volume indeed.
233 Bond, First Biography of Jesus, 1–2.
In response, she suggests three interesting possible reasons for this lack of
research on the generic implications: first is the development of narrative
criticism, which is curiously uninterested in questions of the different genres of
narrative; second is the rise of the so-called “third quest” for the historical Jesus,
which has focused more on the oral tradition behind the gospels than on the lit-
erary character of the texts themselves – perhaps the work of people like Licona
and Keener just discussed may become a corrective here? Thirdly and finally,
Bond notes the “trend towards identifying scriptural echoes and allusions within
the gospels” focusing on the Jewish biblical traditions.234
However, Bond makes it abundantly clear that “my own view, in contrast, is
that reading the gospels as ancient biographies makes a profound difference to
the way that we interpret them.”235 This, then, is her main reason for writing this
book, to explore the implications for reading Mark in the light of its biographical
genre, as she emphasizes again at the start of her “overview of the book”: “I
should perhaps note at this point that my purpose in this book is not to prove
that Mark wrote a biography, but to see how such a generic assumption might
affect its interpretation. If the resulting reading helps to strengthen the generic
identification, then so much the better.”236
Bond begins with a chapter charting the scholarly debate from the assumptions
of early readers through to the nineteenth and early twentieth century (Renan
and Votaw), which was then eclipsed by the rise of form criticism, Schmidt’s
work on the “framework” of the gospels and Bultmann’s stress on uniqueness.
After a survey of the fruitless search for Jewish antecedents for the gospel genre,
she recounts the shift towards Greco-Roman literature, concluding by noting
that “Perhaps the most significant contribution to the discussion, however, came
from a British scholar, Richard Burridge, in 1992,” noting both my detailed anal-
ysis of no less than ten ancient bioi, plus my “attention to genre theory.”237 She
goes on to assert that “research subsequent to Burridge has tended to reinforce
his conclusions. That is not to say, of course, that all have been convinced ….
But the pendulum has certainly swung decisively in favour of seeing the gospels
as ancient biographies.”238 Nonetheless, she repeats her previous observation,
“however, what might be thought to be one of the most spectacular ‘discoveries’
in recent years – a finding rich with interpretative possibilities – seems to have
fallen rather flat. With the exception of a handful of studies, the rich potential of
situating the gospels within Greek bios literature seems to have remained largely
untapped” – hence her book.239

235 Bond, First Biography of Jesus, 4.
She then devotes the next chapter to describing the rich variety of ancient
bioi, from its emergence through Isocrates, Xenophon, and Theopompus, to
the origins of Latin vitae with Nepos and Plutarch, and the rising interest in
morality, character, and the subject’s noble death. The third chapter considers
how “Mark the biographer” wrote his work, discussing the likely level of his own
education, and that of his audience, reflecting on the debate on the social setting
of the gospels. Bond goes on to discuss Mark’s structure, his use of pericopae and
anecdotes, his treatment of possible sources for Jesus’s death – as well as the lack
of a distinct authorial voice and opening prologue which will have disconcerted
his audience’s expectations.
The next two chapters discuss the characterization of Jesus (in chapter 4) and
then that of others (chapter 5), in the light of ancient understandings of char-
acter and personality, idealization and moralistic purposes. Chapter 6 considers
how Mark’s account of Jesus’s death succeeds in transforming an ignominious
end into something almost noble, drawing upon the accounts of various deaths
in biographies, and the first-century interest in death itself, before concluding:
“Mark’s work has been done [spoken] for two millennia, and will doubtless
continue to do. Mark’s biography has forever set the contours of how the story
of Jesus should be told.”240
Bond’s final chapter also considers automimesis, “self-imitation, or trans-
ference,” where the biographer “fills in the gaps” with their own “values and
interests” and closes with some “final reflections,” concluding that,
The argument of this book is that Mark’s bios is a very specific reception of earlier Jesus
tradition … extend[ing] Christian proclamation (“the gospel”) from an early narrow
focus on the death and resurrection of Jesus, so that it now included the way of life of
its founding figure. Situating Jesus at the heart of a biography is not an inevitable devel-
opment but a bold step in outlining a radical form of Jesus discipleship patterned on the
life – and death – of Jesus.241
In this way, Bond has made a significant contribution to the dilemma which she
identified at the start of her book, the surprising fact that the “rich potential of
situating the gospels within Greek bios literature seems to have remained largely
untapped.” In this respect, she follows the direction set by Lincoln, Pennington,
Licona, and Keener in exploring some of the hermeneutical implications of the
gospels’ biographical genre.
This final survey of the last five years or so began with Markham’s extra-
ordinary statement that “Richard Burridge has set an agenda that will provide
decades of work for biblical scholars, historians, and practical theologians.”242
Despite what might have seemed a preposterous claim at first sight, this study

has demonstrated some evidence that Markham could eventually be proved

correct, as we have noted a variety of approaches which different scholars have
adopted as a consequence of the biographical hypothesis, from Pennington’s
“reading wisely” and Lincoln’s application of it to the debates about the virgin
birth, through Keener and Licona’s concern for historical accuracy, to Bond’s
attempt to read Mark as Jesus’s first biographer. On the other hand, we must
also note that their biographical genre does not automatically answer all our
questions about the gospels, as emerges from the contrast between Licona and
Keener on historicity compared with Bond’s similarly careful analysis. Clearly,
we are only just getting started and there is still much to do – but Markham did
suggest it would take decades!
E. Conclusion
This paper at the start of our conference on “The Gospels and Ancient Literary
Criticism: Continuing the Debate on Gospel Genre” has tried to summarize the
main developments over the last two decades, which have turned out to be much
larger than anticipated.
We began with a relatively brief consideration of the theory of genre both
from a literary critic’s handbook and from the perspective of a highly successful
practitioner of “genre fiction” allowed us to assume that our theoretical under-
girding and methodology still remains a firm foundation for all that has been
built thereupon subsequently.
We then embarked upon an analysis of gospel commentaries published since
2000. The results of inspecting commentaries and significant books on Matthew
and Mark were very similar, beginning with the former consensus about the
gospels as “unique” being particularly defended by some established scholars,
while others came quickly to accept the biographical hypothesis, which the
next generation of younger scholars then proceeded to use as a base for fur-
ther research into various implications. In the case of Luke, resistance to the
assignation of the genre of biography seemed more entrenched, perhaps because
of the complication of the genre of Acts, while our study of John showed that it
was quickly adopted by several significant Johannine scholars, leading to various
extremely productive avenues for new research.
In addition, we have noted how the biographical hypothesis has been applied
by Richard Bauckham to the question of the gospel “communities,” leading
to continuing debate, particularly between Bauckham himself and Margaret
Mitchell, while new work by Klink and Smith has explored the ramifications of
the biographical hypothesis for the gospel audiences. Similarly, the biographical
genre of Luke’s gospel inevitably also spills over into the vexed question of the
genre of Acts, where debate is continuing debate, especially my contribution to
the 2011 Festschrift for Loveday Alexander, while subsequent work by Keener,
Adams, Bale, Smith, and Kostopoulos has reminded us of the overlapping
nature of neighbouring genres like biography, monograph and historiography
and the need once again to note the difference between genre and mode. We
also sketched out some reactions and responses arising from within the Roman
Catholic tradition, marked by the 2008 translation of the second edition of What
Are the Gospels? into Italian, and the conference to commemorate the twentieth
anniversary of the original publication in Barcelona in 2012, followed by the
Ratzinger Prize in 2013 for establishing for the “indissoluble connection between
Jesus and the gospels,” and the accompanying conference, as well as continuing
new research from Catholic scholars like Aletti.
Finally, we attempted to summarize the most recent work being done
especially on both the theological and historical implications of the biographical
hypothesis, with theological work from Pennington and Lincoln leading into
some debates about historical accuracy from the work of Licona and Keener, and
concluding with new books from Keener and Bond.
Thus we may conclude as we mark the twenty-fifth anniversary of the first
edition of What Are the Gospels? (not to mention the thirty-fifth anniversary of
my embarking on the actual research in 1982–1983!) that the discussions about
the biographical hypothesis are certainly alive and thriving. We also argued at
the start of this essay that the real mark of the success of any hypothesis is to be
found not just, or even mainly, in its scholarly acceptance, but in the fruitfulness
of the new avenues for research which it inspires, and which are constructed
upon its foundation. These are exciting times to be undertaking new research
based on the biographical genre of the gospels – and I, for one, cannot wait to
see what emerges next!
On “Mastering the Genre”
Werner H. Kelber
Antiquity is always stranger than we think. Nowhere does it prove to

be more strange than where we once assumed that it was most familiar
to us …. Only in the last generation have we realized … the canyon that
lies between us and a world that we had previously tended to take for
granted as directly available to our own categories of understanding.
Peter Brown1
For many centuries we’ve been content to accept the inscribed as the
permanent, as somehow immune to contingencies, as the “last word” on
matters of real importance. John Miles Foley2
Ancient texts were remarkably fluid. Kim Haines-Eitzen3
One also has to accept that the whole idea of a “genre” is relative and
ambiguous, dependent on culturally-accepted canons of differentiation
rather than universal criteria. Ruth H. Finnegan4
A. Prologue
At an early point in his classic study What Are the Gospels?, Richard A. Burridge
writes the following: “Before we can understand the meaning of a text, we must
master its genre. Genre will then be our guide to help us re-construct the original
meaning ….”5 It is a programmatic statement that encapsulates the core of the
author’s thesis, and for that reason merits our close attention. Three interrelated
principles are implied in the thesis. One, genre is the foundational principle of
1 Review of From Shame to Sin: The Christian Transformation of Sexual Morality in Late
Antiquity, by K. Harper, New York Review of Books (December 19, 2013): 48.
2 Oral Tradition and the Internet: Pathways of the Mind (Urbana, IL: University of Illinois
Press, 2012), 63.
3 Guardians of Letters: Literacy, Power, and the Transmitters of Early Christian Literature
(Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000), 105.
4 Oral Poetry: Its Nature, Significance, and Social Context (Cambridge: Cambridge Univer-
sity Press, 1977), 15.
5 R. A. Burridge, What Are the Gospels? A Comparison with Graeco-Roman Biography,
SNTSMS 70 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1992); 2nd ed. (Grand Rapids: Eerd-
mans, 2004); 3rd ed. (Waco, TX.: Baylor University Press, 2018), 51 (all citations are from the
3rd ed.).
58 Werner H. Kelber
communication: it is “at the heart of all attempts to communicate.”6 Two, genre

is essential to understanding the meaning of texts in order for a valid inter-
pretation to occur;7 “genre is a concept absolutely basic to the study of texts.”8
Three, genre determination in fact has priority over the interpretation of the
text proper; through genre one comprehends textual meaning, and not the other
way around. It follows that the first step the exegete has to take is to track down
and “master” a text’s generic profile. This is the premise that prompts Burridge
to focus his principal and undivided attention to the issue of the gospel’s genre
identity.
B. The Generic Profile
If we ask Burridge how to go about defining the gospels’ generic profile, he will
advance a large number of proposals. His initial premise states that genre is not
defined by a single trait, but always by a combination of features. Briefly put, he
prefers a fourfold analysis of features, comprising both form and content, that
are determinative of genre identity: opening lines (title, prologue, etc.), subject or
focus on one individual, external features (mode of representation, meter, length,
structure or sequence, scale, literary units, sources, methods of characterization),
and internal features (setting, topics/motifs, style, tone/mood/attitude/values,
quality of characterization, social setting, and authorial intent). Additionally,
analogies of the gospel’s generic categories with comparable features operative
in Greco-Roman biographies will establish a “family resemblance” (Wittgen-
stein’s term), explicating the gospels within a recognizable range of ancient bios
literature. Based on these characteristics – opening lines, subject, external and
internal features, and similar attributes found in other prose literature – Burridge
concludes that both the canonical gospels and the Acts of the Apostles share the
same profile of the Greco-Roman biography.
There is an additional aspect that needs to be included in an assessment of
genres generally and the bios genre specifically. Apart from being determined
by a large cluster of distinctive features, the profile of genre is also distinguished
by flexibility on many levels. This particular generic property of flexibility
and dynamism deserves notice both because Burridge tirelessly reiterates this
feature throughout all three editions of his magnum opus, and because it has
deeper implications than the author seems ready to acknowledge. Literature
itself, Burridge reasons, must be understood “as a network of relationships
6 Burridge, What Are the Gospels?, 48.

7 On the matter of interpretive authority, Burridge relies on E. D. Hirsch, Jr., Validity in
Interpretation (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1967); see Burridge, What Are the
Gospels?, 25–52.
On “Mastering the Genre” 59
with flexible boundaries,”9 just as “the boundaries of genre are flexible and
hard to delineate precisely.”10 This “concept of flexible generic boundaries”11 is
a defining premise of Burridge’s genre theory and it serves him to guard against
the classical and neoclassical thesis that “genres were fixed, clearly distinguished
one from another and each with their own appropriate elements to be included
and rules to be obeyed.”12 To the contrary, Burridge proposes, “genres are as
susceptible to change as all literary conventions.”13 Therefore, “borrowing or
sharing of generic features is to be expected.”14 By way of example, the borders
between the genres of historiography, monograph, and biography are likely to be
“blurred and flexible.”15 In different words, the genre of bios is “nestling between
history, encomium, and moral philosophy, with overlaps and relationships in
all directions.”16 Hence given this pliability and porousness of generic borders,
“authors import new material across these boundaries to alter and develop the
genres.”17 As far as historical time and place is concerned, Burridge views the last
centuries BCE and the first century CE as “a period of creative experimentation
and innovation,”18 underscoring the point that the gospels were written “during
this period of flexibility and innovation.”19 It was a time in Greco-Roman literary
history when genres, “being mixed and crossbred to achieve new results,”20 were
“in a constant state of flux, shifting and regrouping as features alter and as new
works are written.”21
In a scholarly work that for the last twenty-five years has been dedicated to
the determination of genre, the extraordinary latitude Burridge allows for genre
is nothing short of astonishing. Rather than passing over the author’s extensive
deliberations of the genre’s malleable status and solely focusing instead on his
thesis of the gospel’s bios genre, one ought to pause and reflect on the significance
of his discussion of generic variability. One needs to let it sink in that Burridge
has described an ancient communications world in which generic instability is
by no means an exception, but a given of ancient cultural life. His programmatic
statement, therefore, that a “discussion of genre must always take account of such
flexibility,”22 deserves to be taken to heart.
9 Burridge, What Are the Gospels?, 57, 66.

15 Burridge, What Are the Gospels?, I.83, 237.
One way of paying heed to Burridge’s advice is to raise awareness of two

intellectual trajectories running through his scholarship. On one hand, we
saw, genres share the fate of all literary conventions in being subject to change,
exhibiting porous boundaries, functioning in a state of flux, and existing in a
cultural environment of communicative resourcefulness, inventiveness, literary
crossbreeding, and intermingling. Such is the degree of flexibility that Burridge
is ready to claim that “genre experimentation and overlap … is a key concept
for study of both ancient biography and the gospels themselves.”23 However,
one may ask, if not genre classification as such but “genre experimentation and
overlap” determine the gospel’s generic profile, has genre not lost its status as
defining authority over a text’s meaning, and forfeited its usefulness to control a
text’s interpretation? How can the fate of the gospel’s meaning ever be decided
on the level of genre if the latter is itself a dynamic and unstable authority? On
the other hand, there is a different, far more conventional trajectory running
through Burridge’s scholarship. He is repeatedly making a strong case for indi-
vidual authorship of the gospels: they “were written by a person, about a person,
for other persons.”24 One might be inclined to interpret “written by a person”
not literally and assume broader networking relations, were it not for his defense
of “the author’s intentions,”25 “the author’s original meaning”26 and the need
to know “the original genre.”27 When one considers the exceptional authority
granted to “the original genre” as arbiter of “the author’s original meaning,”
one feels projected into a tight hermeneutical framework that appears designed
to deliver the single sense as a manifestation of textual finality. A number of
questions persist uncomfortably. In a world of literary crossbreeding, generic
intermingling, and the flexible status of genres, whence does genre derive its
authority as overarching interpretive power? In a period of literary inventiveness
and creativity, what is it that gives genre the controlling power over the life of
the gospel narrative? Can a privileged generic authority be abstracted from the
narrative and placed above the flux of communications history? And what, one
might add, could a single-minded pursuit of genre, and the stabilization of “the
original meaning” of author and “the original genre” possibly mean in a world in
which admittedly all genres are susceptible to change?
Burridge is aware that he is seeking to straddle two intellectual trajectories
even though he will not put the matter in exactly those terms. His preferred
nomenclature is that of prescriptivism versus descriptivism.28 The former
suggests a statically fixed norm that must be complied with, and the latter a

28 Burridge, What Are the Gospels?, 32–34.
methodology that leaves room for flexibility and innovation. Burridge professes
to opt for a “middle ground,”29 which seeks to mediate between what in current
philosophical terminology would be an essentialist versus an antifoundational
position. Elsewhere he tiptoes around the edges of one of the major Western
philosophical traditions without ever fully expounding the legacy in whose
shadow he is conducting his scholarly project. Yet when he introduces terms
such as “nominalism and classification,”30 “Universals,” and “eternally immu-
table Platonic Ideal Forms,”31 he is coming tantalizingly close to the venerable
medieval dispute between realism and nominalism over the status of universals.
In that dispute, realism represented the position that language, memory, and
sense perception were designed to collaborate in the higher interest of universal
knowledge. In fact, divine universals and eternally true realities were viewed as
the appropriate objective of the mind’s aspirations. William of Ockham’s nomi-
nalism, by contrast, rejected essentialism and held that the world was knowable
only by its contingencies. Unlike philosophical realists, he moved the particular,
the distinctive, and the experiential to the center of inquiry. Viewed in light of
these categories, the issues raised by the critical theory of genre can indeed be
perceived as a modern rerun of the medieval dispute over universals. Burridge’s
genre project is struggling with the question whether the genre by which the
gospel is knowable is conceived as a fixed principle of authority (realism), or as
a mere method of classification (nominalism), or as a convention which none-
theless effects interpretation (the middle ground).32
Excursus. Two contributions to this volume have introduced a dimension that might help
illuminate the genre project.33 While neither Sandra Huebenthal nor Michal Beth Dinkler
consciously focus on temporality, the latter issue does emerge in their respective essays as
a crucial agent of change that impacts textual meaning.34 Based on her work on cultural
memory,35 Huebenthal’s contribution introduces the social memory model which is in-
extricably involved with temporality: following a period of ca. 40 years, social memory
shifts into collective memory (generational gap), which approximately 40 years later turns
into cultural memory (floating gap). In synchrony with a growing distance from the events
to be remembered, the frames, modes, and media of memorization undergo changes. The

32 Burridge does not develop this philosophical framework. Had he done so, it would
have placed his often redundant and single-mindedly focused project in the broad context of
Western intellectual history.
33 Other contributors may well be making a similar point, but I have not had the oppor-
tunity to consult with them.
34 See pp. 145–76 and 77–96, respectively. Dinkler does discuss narrative time, but not his-
torical, chronological time.
35 S. Huebenthal, Das Markusevangelium als kollektives Gedächtnis, 2nd ed., FRLANT 253
(Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 2018), Eng. trans., Reading Mark’s Gospel as a Text from
Collective Memory (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 2020).
author demonstrates this observation on the example of intertextuality, a text’s allusions

to or citations of other texts. A survey of Isaiah in NT texts explains the different textual
employments as result of a memory discourse that struggles against “the ever-changing
temporal horizon” (mitwandernder Zeithorizont) of a steadily receding past.
Michal Beth Dinkler’s contribution is strictly focused on genre. Deeply versed in
genology (the theory of genres), she espouses a shift from a purely typological, clas-
sificatory concept of genre to viewing it as a mode of communication. As such genres are
inextricably involved in social life and as a matter of course responsive to ever-changing
contingencies. She acknowledges their function as orienting devices and conventional
constraints, yet pleads for their being in a constant state of transformation. Especially in
biblical literature, “genres bleed and blur into one another.” Dinkler’s overall strategy is to
comprehend genres not as work, but as texts; not as products, but in process; and, I would
add, not in space, but in time.
Both Huebenthal and Dinkler, despite their very different approaches, are attuned to the
forces of social life and cultural history, and sensitive to the responsiveness biblical texts
are showing toward life’s contingencies in ways Burridge is not. They are, in other words,
advocates of receptionist aesthetics or Wirkungsgeschichte. In the categories introduced
above, they both embrace the nominalist approach. Underlying their position, I would
claim, is an unequivocal embrace of temporality as a crucial factor in the construction
and interpretation of texts. But we are left with the nagging question implicitly raised in
the epigraph by Ruth H. Finnegan to this piece: if genres are culturally constructed and
accepted canons rather than universal criteria, does criticism not have to abandon the
notion of genre not only as the authoritative mastermind, but as orienting guide of a text’s
interpretation? As our philosophically skilled forebears would frame it: does the universal
set the stage for the particulars, or do the particulars submerge the universal?
C. The Narrative Profile
In the preceding section I noted that Burridge constructs the gospel’s generic
authority with the assistance of a large number of individual component parts.
Some of them are selected from the narrative, although without consideration
of the plotline. All things considered, one is led to conclude that the plotted
narrative has no part in Burridge’s definition of genre. Inevitably this raises the
question whether a construction of a gospel’s genre is feasible and the authority
of genre imaginable without any narrative input. As far as I can see, among the
numerous participants in the genre discussion generated by Burridge, David
P. Moessner appears to be the only one who has taken exception to the exclusion
of narrative.36 To Moessner’s concern about Burridge’s inattention to narrative,
the latter responded that narrative does not qualify as a generic indicator be-
cause it is a feature common to history, epic, comedy, tragedy, and other genres.
36 D. P. Moessner, “Short Excursus: Richard Burridge’s What are the Gospels? A Comparison
with Graeco-Roman Biography, Cambridge University Press, 1992,” in idem, Luke the Historian
of Israel’s Legacy, Theologian of Israel’s “Christ”: A New Reading of the “Gospel Acts” of Luke,
BZNW 182 (Berlin: De Gruyter, 2016), 64–65; cf. also Burridge, What Are the Gospels?, I.82.
Yet nowhere in my reading of Burridge’s work do I observe him suggesting that

each genre is confined to a distinct group of features. Quite the opposite, many
internal features “occur in a similar fashion in a number of differing genres.”37
Indeed, similarity of features among different genres is not only to be expected
but virtually required in order for them to secure the family resemblance of a
group of affiliated texts.
It is not easy to explain why Burridge does not attend to narrative and why
he does not integrate it in his genre project. Is it that his fixation on genre lets
him judge everything from this one perspective, and consequently blinds him
to other aspects? When referencing narrative criticism, he deplores that “un-
fortunately, narrative critics did not grapple with the issue of genre in their
initial studies until recently.”38 But might one not conversely ask why the genre
critic does not grapple with what is most obvious about the gospels, namely
their narrative form? Conceding that the rise of narrative criticism is vitally
important for gospel studies, he reasons that it advances “the biographical
hypothesis” and the “Christological hermeneutics”39 associated with it, for “the
gospels” in his view, “are nothing less than Christology in narrative form.”40
At best, this is a truncated view of narrative criticism, and at most a misunder-
standing. Most narrative critics would agree that the exploration of the gospel’s
narrative landscape is a project that is not to be subordinated to Christology
any more than it is closely tied in with genre. In what is one of the best books,
if not the best book, on recent narrative criticism, Stephen D. Moore has stated
that “with narrative criticism a significant displacement occurs, ‘the theological
purpose of the author’ no longer being at the center.”41 Neither Christology, nor
theology or, for that matter, genre, are to be privileged vis-à-vis narrative. From
the narratological perspective the gospel plotlines do not operate as vehicles for
the transport of Christology or theology, any more than they play the role as
executors of generic authority. Put differently, ideational content of whatever
kind is not so much expressed in narrative – so as to be extracted and preserved
in pure form – but communicated as narrative so as to be indistinguishable from
narrative. In Moore’s words, the gospels are “narrative thought through and
through.”42

41 S. D. Moore, Literary Criticism and the Gospels: The Theoretical Challenge (New Haven,
CT: Yale University Press, 1989), 8.
42 Moore, Literary Criticism and the Gospels, 62. For the project of a genuinely narrative
Christology, see E. S. Malbon, Mark’s Jesus: Characterization as Narrative Christology (Waco,
TX: Baylor University Press, 2009). Her approach is throughout narratological. Here Chris-
tology is not abstracted from narrative, and is not even expressed in narrative, but it is perceived
as narrative.
In light of the above considerations I should like to make a critical shift, in

effect reversing the suggested priority of genre, and re-emphasizing the funda-
mental importance of a gospel’s narrative. Simply put, I propose to commence
with what is before us and cannot be left unattended – which is narrative – and
not with genre, an entity constructed without attention to plotline. To that end
I take issue with Burridge’s programmatic statement cited at the outset: “Be-
fore we can understand the meaning of a text, we must master its genre. Genre
will then be our guide to help us re-construct the original meaning ….”43 In its
place I suggest the following reformulation: “In order to appreciate the power of
the gospel, we must grasp the narrative plot and its impact on hearers.” Absent
from my statement is the word “meaning” (replaced by “power”), absent fur-
thermore is the notion of “the original meaning,” and absent also is the reference
to “genre.” It is obvious that I put a great deal of weight on the plotted narrative
of the gospel.
Since the 1970s, biblical scholarship, initially for the most part in North
America, has seen a rapidly growing development of the narrative exploration
of the gospels. This has prompted a reconsideration of old answers, raised new
questions, posed theoretical challenges, and resulted in a vast array of novel
insights. Overcoming the limitations of historical, form, and redaction criticism,
the long overdue narrative approach takes the internal narrative world of the
gospels utterly seriously in ways these prior criticisms never have. In effect, what
narrative criticism is doing is to rescue the narrative from the corrosive influence
to which it has been subjected by historical, form, and redaction criticism, and
to pursue its rehabilitation.
Narrative criticism comes in two styles: as formalist project that espouses the
autonomous integrity of the narrative world,44 and as receptionist project that
displays rhetorical directives and strategies addressed to readers or hearers.45
Whether as formalist project or as discourse model, narrative criticism is deeply
attuned to the plotted story in all its parts and in the arrangements of the parts in
a narrative whole. The discipline takes pleasure in exploring countless narrative
connections, overarching themes, intercalations, recapitulations, character-
ization, anticipations, targeted polemics and conflictual situations, fulfillment
and unfulfillment dynamics, rhetorical patterns, thematic configurations, and
so forth. Deeply attentive to these features, narrative criticism brings to light
a wealth of interpretive data, many of them untapped and barely ever imagin-
ed, and in the process facilitates the rediscovery of the virtually inexhaus-
43 See Burridge, What Are the Gospels?, 51; and §A above.

44 See, for example, E. K. Broadhead, ed., Let the Reader Understand: Essays in Honor of
Elizabeth Struthers Malbon, LNTS 583 (London: Bloomsbury T&T Clark, 2018).
45 See, for example, R. M. Fowler, Let the Reader Understand: Reader-Response Criticism
and the Gospel of Mark (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 1991).
tible hermeneutical potential of the gospels.46 Last not least, in studying the
gospel’s interior relationships, narrative critics register countless motivations,
rationalities, and causalities. These internal dynamics – and this is what matters
most in narrative criticism – are being explained not in terms of theological or
Christological or historical causations, but as products of the gospel’s narrative
rationale. Interpreters who are focused on theology, Christology, history, or, for
that matter, genre, often find it difficult to come to terms with narrative the-
matization, rationality and causality. And yet, it is precisely these aspects that are
contributing to a new poetics of gospel hermeneutics.
The rediscovery of the gospels as a fertile field in which something always
remains to be harvested has taught us a renewed appreciation for the different
narrative landscapes of the gospels. Once we acknowledge an autonomous
narrative identity for each of the gospels it is going to be increasingly difficult
to read one through the lenses of the others, or to fuse all four into a mega-
narrative, or, importantly, to submerge all four (and Acts) under a single generic
grid, such as Greco-Roman bios. Manifestly, the narrative focus assigns priority
to plot over genre – if the latter is envisaged at all. Instead of placing genre above
and ahead of the plotted world, one lets the multilayered narrative web deter-
mine the interpretation.
Precisely why is it that narrative criticism, as Burridge rightly observed, pays
relatively scant attention to genre? On this point the work of Norman R. Pe-
tersen is crucially important. One of the earliest proponents of the application of
literary criticism to NT texts, Petersen has also been one of the most vociferous
critics of a generic consideration of the gospels.47 His work is therefore ideally
suited to probe connections between narrative competence and reservation
toward a generic categorization. Two aspects of Petersen’s publications seem
relevant here. Finding his way toward a literary appreciation of Mark’s gospel,
Petersen was gathering a rich crop of novel narrative data. From the perspective
of his narrative experience, he judged the confinement to a single classificatory
grid for all four gospels as a reductive move: “I cannot envision what our know-
ing about that genre [of bios] could tell us about Mark that we cannot know
simply from a rigorous intrinsic analysis of Mark.”48 But there is a deeper reason
for Petersen’s skepticism towards genre criticism. One of his most significant
46 I call this aspect of narrative criticism a “rediscovery,” because ancient and medieval
theology abounded in words of the highest commendation concerning the fecundity and rich
hermeneutical potential of Scripture. In a sheer never-ending profusion of metaphors, exegetes
sing the praises of the virtual inexhaustibility of the Bible. By comparison, historical, form,
redaction, and indeed genre criticism have promoted a severely reductionist hermeneutic.
47 N. R. Petersen, “Can One Speak of Gospel Genre?” Neot 28/3 (1994): 137–58. See also his
earlier unpublished 1974 paper, “So-Called Gnostic Type Gospels and the Problem of ‘Gospel’
as Genre.”
48 Petersen, “Can One Speak,” 148.
contributions was the elaboration of point of view.49 It is a pervasive narrative

rationale discernible in the plotting of episodes, the details of characterization,
the individuals’ speeches and discourses, commentaries, narrative asides, and
many more. Petersen himself defined the concept as the narrator’s ideological
position on the basis of which episodes and words were being plotted. It was a
virtually omniscient voice that had the capacity even to know the thoughts and
inner life of characters. As Petersen understands point of view, its pervasiveness
“provides the most compelling evidence that his [Mark’s] gospel is a bona fide
literary composition.”50 Just as in genre criticism, here was, therefore, an over-
riding authority in literary criticism that exercised a measure of compositional
guidance over the narrative. But whereas genre was a trans-narrative category,
point of view was an intrinsically narrative entity. From Petersen’s literary-critical
perspective, therefore, point of view and not genre was the legitimate narrative
authority. Thus, it is not that genre needs to be known first before a valid inter-
pretation can take place, because the interior narrative dynamics themselves
expose the authoritative point of view that regulates the narrative.
In light of the signal importance of gospel narrativity I have to return one
more time to Burridge’s central thesis that genre needs to be known first be-
fore any valid interpretation of the gospel can take place. Genre is “a concept
absolutely basic to the study of texts,”51 he asserts, because it comprises a con-
ventional agreement between author and readers, signaling what sort of under-
standing is ascribed to texts. Hence his premise that without the assistance of
genre readers have no way of understanding. But one may ask: why should
genre, and genre alone, do all the heavy lifting and be the readers’ sole guide.
Reader-response criticism (audience criticism) along with memory studies,
orality-scribality and media studies, rhetorical criticism, sound mapping, dis-
course analysis, and performance criticism – approaches which earlier I had
designated as the receptionist project – have for some time now been tipping
the scales toward reader or audience orientation. Jointly, these new orientations
have initiated a shift from story to discourse, and from meaning-as-content to
meaning-as-event, and jointly they have introduced a new aesthetics of gospel
hermeneutics. While admittedly many of these approaches have a modern ring
to them, their discovery of literature’s effects upon reader and hearers is a mere
replay of the predominantly rhetorical and pragmatic orientation of ancient
communicative style. These approaches, each in its own way, have uncovered
a profusion of narrative strategies aimed at persuading, soliciting, inviting,
orienting, and disorienting readers/hearers. By way of example, Huebenthal has
recently reformulated the conventional reader-response categories by exploring
49 N. R. Petersen, “‘Point of View’ in Mark’s Narrative,” Semeia 12 (1978): 97–121.

50 Petersen, “Point of View,” 115.
the so-called Familiarisierungsangebote, narrative strategies that enable and

solicit readers/hearers to identify with events so as to recognize themselves in
the narrated world. It is, therefore, by no means the authority of genre alone
that provides orientation for readers/hearers, but it is also what Huebenthal
has called Rezeptionslenkung52 or Leserlenkung53 that guides the readers’ appro-
priation of the narrative text. Is it not time to agree that the gospel as narrative,
not simply as generic authority, is intentionally reader/hearer oriented?
On the related issue concerning the nature of gospel audiences, I find Richard
Bauckham’s thesis about a wider, trans-local readership difficult to accept as far
as the early period of the gospel tradition is concerned.54 But whether one imag-
ines the gospels’ social settings as strictly local or transcending local boundaries,
I submit a caveat that appears to be missing from the debate. In a celebrated
article on “The Writer’s Audience Is Always a Fiction,” Walter J. Ong asserted
that the writer shapes and constructs the roles readers are called on to play.55 In
short, the audience is fictionalized. Ong’s article is profoundly illuminating, and
yet, it merely draws the logical conclusions from the receptionist project. It fully
integrates the role of the audience into what Wayne C. Booth has called “the
rhetoric of fiction.”56 The project of reconstructing the gospels’ historical reader-
ship and audience with any degree of historical precision will therefore have to
be viewed as a precarious, and possibly misguided, undertaking. The gospels,
I propose, do not confront us with a single social setting, but with four different
fictionalized audiences.
D. The Historical Profile
While these preceding arguments were of a rather theoretical kind, the following
third part will examine the historical emergence of the gospel tradition and
explore how gospel genre fared in the context of the ancient communications
environment. As a guide for what is to follow I have chosen Matthew D. C.
Larsen, whose Gospels before the Book appears to me uncommonly attuned
to the historical, linguistic, and hermeneutical realities on the ground as they
obtained with reference to the gospel composition in the early centuries CE.57
52 Huebenthal, Das Markusevangelium, 332.

53 Huebenthal, Das Markusevangelium, 380, passim.
54 R. Bauckham, “For Whom Were the Gospels Written?” in The Gospels for All Christians:
Rethinking the Gospel Audiences, ed. idem (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1998), 9–48.
55 W. J. Ong, “The Writer’s Audience is Always a Fiction,” in idem, Interfaces of the Word:
Studies in the Evolution of Consciousness and Culture (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press,
1977), 53–81.
56 W. C. Booth, The Rhetoric of Fiction, 2nd ed. (Chicago: University of Chicago Press,
1983).
57 M. D. C. Larsen, Gospels before the Book (New York: Oxford University Press, 2018).
Among the key terms running through his book are textual fluidity, mutability,
open-endedness, unfinished work, gaps, inconsistencies, revisable texts, textual
pluriformity, and others. As far as the full impact of this language is concerned,
it describes the communications world of the first two centuries and beyond as a
dynamic and fluid environment. Larsen’s intellectual mentors are Eva Mroczek
and Sean Gurd who study Jewish literature (Mroczek) and classical texts (Gurd)
as a phenomenon of scribal revisionism, instability, and as a process dominated
by flux and plurality.58 They both have taken pains to demonstrate how modern
assumptions of authorship and book publishing have tended to shape our vision
of the ancient communications culture, and they seek to reconceptualize both
the Jewish and the Greco-Roman media world before fixed notions of author-
ship and book controlled our scholarly imagination.59
Very much in the spirit of Mroczek and Gurd, Larsen’s thesis poses a challenge
to the conventional historical approach that relies heavily on concepts of the
single author, the original version, book publications, the definitive text, generic
finality, the original meaning, and the autonomous literary oeuvre. Not the least
of Larsen’s intentions is to raise consciousness about “our own modern ‘bookish’
assumptions, which are the result of printing press-technologies,”60 and to
challenge the adequacy of many of our theories of the verbal art in antiquity.
Among the numerous examples Larsen submits for consideration in support
of his thesis, I single out the concept of textual pluriformity, the occurrence of
multiple different versions of the same text. Multiformity, he suggests, is a symp-
tom of the fluid state of scribal word processing. In observing plural versions
of the same work in both biblical and numerous other texts, he concludes that
“textual pluriformity was a normal part of textual culture,”61 expressing the very
opinion I had voiced about Second Temple Judaism some six years ago: “textual
pluriformity was a given and an acceptable way of textual life.”62 Text criticism,
which has a long history of dealing with textual variants, offers the most conspic-
uous demonstration of textual multiformity.63 Recent text-critical studies by Bart
Ehrman, Kim Haines-Eitzen, and David Parker have introduced a departure in
58 E. Mroczek, The Literary Imagination in Jewish Antiquity (Oxford: Oxford University

Press, 2016); eadem, “Thinking Digitally about the Dead Sea Scrolls: Book History before and
beyond the Book,” Book History 14 (2011): 241–69; S. A. Gurd, Work in Progress: Literary Re-
vision as Social Performance in Ancient Rome (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2012).
59 A concern for what I have called “the typographic captivity” has preoccupied my schol-
arly interests for the past forty years. For a recent publication on this issue, see W. H. Kelber,
“The ‘Gutenberg Galaxy’ and the Historical Study of the New Testament,” Oral History Journal
of South Africa 5/2 (2017): 1–16.
60 Larsen, Gospels before the Book, 5.
62 W. H. Kelber, “The History of the Closure of Biblical Texts,” in idem, Imprints, Voice-
prints, and Footprints of Memory: Collected Essays, RBS 74 (Atlanta: SBL, 2013), 413–40, 420.
63 For the longest part of its existence, text criticism used to be viewed as the esoteric enclave
of a limited group of experts. Recently, some of the most paradigm-changing developments in
the study of NT papyri and manuscripts,64 and initiated a new attitude toward
the variants. As a result, the myriad of variants of NT papyri and manuscripts
are now being appreciated not merely for their utility in contributing to the
standard text, but as entities with their own intrinsic worth and as contributors to
the vitality of the tradition. Eldon Epp, grappling with hundreds upon hundreds
of variation units, has made scribal variants the focal point of a reassessment
of foundational premises of text criticism.65 Eugene Ulrich, chief editor of the
Qumran scrolls, has likewise affirmed that the issue of the pluriformity of bib-
lical manuscripts is “the question dominating the discussion of the history of the
biblical text.”66 I have myself argued that variability was an acceptable scribal
way of life in at least four ancient traditions: the proto-Masoretic tradition, the
early Jesus tradition (both in Paul and in the Synoptics), the Hellenistic school
tradition, and the rabbinic tradition.67
The phenomenon of scribal variants harbors significant clues about the state
of the ancient biblical communications culture. What, for example, is one to
make of the fact that the Isaiah text at Qumran whose manifest relevance could
be expected to prompt early stabilization “continually experienced growth and
expansion” as a result of “numerous hands [having] contributed in a wide variety
of styles”?68 Or, how is one to come to terms with the fact that the Lord’s Prayer
whose authoritative role cannot be in doubt existed in six early forms, two ver-
sions of the Matthean prayer and four versions of the Lukan prayer?69 What, in
other words, does textual pluriformity tell us about the nature and processes of
the tradition?
I will focus on two implications of scribal variants. One, pluriformity func-
tions in ways analogous to oral tradition. Repeatability signifies an aversion to
settling on one singular version. A continuous rewording suggests a functioning
of tradition that is not fixed and closed, but open and prone to being carried
biblical scholarship have taken place in this discipline both with respect to the text of the HB
and to the Greek text of the NT.
64 B. D. Ehrman, The Orthodox Corruption of Scripture: The Effect of Early Christological
Controversies on the Text of the New Testament, 2nd ed. (Oxford: Oxford University Press,
2011); K. Haines-Eitzen, Guardians of Letters; D. C. Parker, The Living Text of the Gospels
(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1997).
65 E. J. Epp, “Textual Criticism and New Testament Interpretation,” in Method and Mean-
ing: Essays on New Testament Interpretation in Honor of Harold W. Attridge, ed. A. McGowan
and K. H. Richards, RBS 67 (Atlanta: SBL, 2011), 79–105, 81; E. J. Epp, “It’s All About Variants:
A Variant-Conscious Approach to New Testament Criticism,” HTR 100 (2007): 275–308.
66 E. Ulrich, The Dead Sea Scrolls and the Origins of the Bible, Studies in the Dead Sea
Scrolls and Related Literature (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans; Leiden: Brill, 1999), 80.
67 W. H. Kelber, “The Work of Birger Gerhardsson in Perspective,” in Jesus in Memory:
Traditions in Oral and Scribal Perspectives, ed. idem and S. Byrskog (Waco, TX: Baylor Univer-
sity Press, 2009), 173–206, repr. in Kelber, Imprints, Voiceprints and Footprints, 367–411.
68 E. Ulrich, The Dead Sea Scrolls and the Developmental Composition of the Bible, VTSup
169 (Leiden: Brill, 2015), 129.
69 Parker, Living Text, 69.
forward be it via reoralization or Fortschreibung.70 Pluriformity will find its most

fertile soil in oral communications or in scribal activities with oral roots where
words are without borders and enjoying a high degree of fluidity.71 In rhetoric the
inclination toward redundant patterns is called copia (abundance), a style that
opts for copiousness, repetition, and expansive richness.72 One may, therefore,
describe the pluriformity in scribal traditions as a phenomenon of residual orality
or as an oral-scribal interface. Two, whenever one encounters similar traditions
in plural form, our interpretation ought to resist reduction to singularity. In cases
of pluriformity, we need to come to terms with plurality. But, as Albert B. Lord
has reminded us some time ago: “We find it difficult to grasp something that is
multiform.”73 Much of our work in biblical scholarship is premised on the notion
of fixed texts in a stable universe. Motivated by bookish assumptions, we tend
to search for or work toward the one original text – a grounding assumption of
text criticism, form criticism, the Quest, and much of gospel studies. As for text
criticism, its story until recently has been the construction of what has long been
promoted as “the original text” while failing to seriously consider the validity of
the variable features in the tradition. Yet could it be that fluidity, not originality,
is the lifeblood of the gospel tradition, essential to understanding both its intrinsic
mechanism and aesthetic significance?
Along those lines, Larsen argues that the gospel of Mark has to be understood
as part of a tradition that is fluid and in motion. Although not using the term
Fortschreibung, he asks us to familiarize ourselves with the continuous rework-
ing of scribal products as a practice regularly observed in Jewish, classical, and
early Christian chirographic culture.74 Written pieces quite often served as raw
material ready to be reworked at a later time, or as seemingly “final drafts” until
at a later point someone decided to bring the writings up to date. If we remember
that the material existence of texts derives its rationale from resisting change, we
may find the widespread practice of Fortschreibung difficult to accept. Yet preser-
vation was not the only, and perhaps not even the most important, impulse that
prompted the chirographic production. To keep an ancient tradition alive was
essential for the well-being of many hand-written processes, and the updating of
70 The term Fortschreibung has been used by Huebenthal (Das Markusevangelium, 121,
passim), and it is traceable to J. Assmann, Das kulturelle Gedächtnis: Schrift, Erinnerung und
politische Identität in frühen Hochkulturen, 3rd ed. (Munich: Beck, 2000), 34, passim.
71 It is only with the print medium that words were confined by what appear to be defini-
tively justified margins, projecting the modern image of textual finality.
72 W. J. Ong, Orality and Literacy: The Technologizing of the Word (London: Methuen,
1982), 39–41.
73 A. B. Lord, The Singer of Tales, Harvard Studies in Comparative Literature 24 (Cam-
bridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1960), 100; 2nd ed. by S. Mitchell and G. Nagy (2000).
74 Concerning the implementation of rewriting as a hallmark of ancient literary practice,
see D. M. Carr, Writing on the Tablet of the Heart: Origins of Scripture and Literature (Oxford:
Oxford University Press, 2005).
writings was a means to that end. However, there were technological issues in-
volved in the pluriformity of scribal products as well. We should remember that
owing to the duplicative powers of the print medium all printed copies of a given
text were now identical in a sense never experienced before. Prior to Guten-
berg, there is no single standard text, nor are there fully identical texts, because
entirely uniform and totally identical copies were technologically unattainable
without the duplicating techniques of typography. Among the numerous notions
of authority available none has more deeply impacted biblical scholarship than
that of the author as a solitary individual who self-consciously and almost
single-handedly composes texts. Rarely has this concept of the author as creative
individual, this idea of an authorial one-person show, ever been entirely absent
from modern scholarship’s dealings with ancient texts. Yet ancient authorship
was anything but a simple act, or, for that matter, a single act. What needs to be
kept in mind, writes Pieter J. J. Botha, is that generally a wide range of activities
as well as multiple voices and hands were involved in the processing of ancient
chirographic materials.75 Authorship, according to Botha, “required a group ef-
fort.”76 His preferred terms are “interactive authorship”77 and “co-authorship,”78
John M. Foley opts for “distributed authorship,”79 Larsen chooses “multiple au-
thorized version,80 while I incline towards “collective authorship.” Distinctions
that are obvious to us between scribe, author, editor, commentator, reader, and
copyist have lost their significance in the ancient communications environ-
ment.81 Ancient chirographs operated within a scriptographic network that
was defined by dictator and lector, scribes (librarii, epistulares), stenographers
and note takers (notarii), persons assigned secretarial tasks (amanuenses),
couriers and letter carriers (tabellarii), handwritten materials destined for re-
oralization, and oral-scribal-memorial interpenetrability. Compare this with the
post-Gutenberg typographic network that is defined by individual authorship,
printers and printing press, designers and copy editors, the publishing business,
bookstores, entirely identical copies, virtually limitless publication facilities, and
a vast and growing readership, and one recognizes the canyon that separates the
two communication cultures.
Larsen’s thesis proceeds from a close reading of Papias’s often-rehearsed
statement in Eusebius about the making of Mark (Hist. eccl. 3.39.15). As Larsen
reads the passage, Papias reported that a person by the name of Mark wrote
down the living oral tradition consisting of short episodic pieces (chreiai)
75 P. J. J. Botha, Orality and Literacy in Early Christianity, BPC 5 (Eugene, OR: Wipf &
Stock, 2012), 118–31.
76 Botha, Orality and Literacy, 131.
77 Botha, Orality and Literacy, 129.
78 Botha, Orality and Literacy, 199–200.
79 Foley, Oral Tradition and the Internet, 74–76.
80 Larsen, Gospels before the Book, 59–77.
81 Botha, Orality and Literacy, 125–26.
as he received them from Peter. Furthermore, Papias twice attributed Mark’s

writing to his own remembering (hosa emnēmoneusen; apemnēmoneusen),
and he twice acknowledges that Mark’s written remembrances lacked literary
organization (ou mentoi taxei; ouch hōsper syntaxin). Importantly for Larsen’s
thesis, Papias never identified Mark’s writings as “gospel” (euaggelion). “In fact,
Papias … never refers to any piece of writing as a gospel or even uses the word
gospel (euaggelion).”82 One will therefore have to assume that Papias intended
to describe Mark, as “a textualizer of oral tradition and not an ‘author,’”83 who
preserved Peter’s teachings in the form of apomnēmoneumata,84 and not as
something he would care to define as a “gospel.” Far from giving an account of
Mark’s authorship of a book called gospel, Papias recounted the textualization
of a live oral tradition that was rooted in memory and lacked literary polish.85
According to Papias, remembering and oral discourse lie at the root of what was
going to be the Markan tradition.
Larsen next compiles an extensive review of ancient publication practices
based on passages in Cicero, Horace, Aulus Hirtius, Pliny the Elder, Martial,
Arrian, Diodorus Siculus, Plato, Philo, Josephus, 4 Ezra, Plutarch, Galen of
Pergamon, and others. The examples exhibit a richly diversified picture of
ancient publication culture, including a large number of unfinished, unattrib-
uted and provisional writings, materials published accidentally and against
the will of the author, writings frequently refracted through memorial and re-
visioning processes, formerly secret texts communicated to new readerships,
lecture notes written only for the lecturer, and many more. It prompts Larsen
to sound a cautionary note that in dealing with ancient scribal writings we are
by no means always likely to encounter the so-called final, authorial version.
When viewed in the context of these ancient publication practices, Larsen
finds his thesis confirmed that the Markan remembrances described by Papias
were indeed meant to be understood not as a gospel book but as an unfinished
collection of notes.86
According to Larsen, it is precisely the scribally unprocessed, unpolished state
and the open ending of Mark’s textualization of the oral legacy that launched a
tradition designed to continue the work begun by the apomnēmoneumata. On

84 Larsen deals with Justin Martyr’s use of apomnēmoneumata in his Gospels before the
Book, 180 n. 52.
85 See L. C. A. Alexander’s study of “Memory and Tradition in the Hellenistic Schools,” in
Kelber and Byrskog, Jesus in Memory, 113–53.
86 Larsen (Gospels before the Book, 93) writes that “the text(s) we now call the Gospel ac-
cording to Mark constitute(s) the rough draft ….” But it seems self-evident that what Papias
described as fluid and preliminary apomnēmoneumata cannot possibly be identical with the
Markan text reconstructed in NA28. The Markan apomnēmoneumata represent the earliest
recognizable stage in a Markan tradition that reached its typographic apotheosis in the NA28.
this point Antoinette Clark Wire’s study of the early Markan tradition proves to
be especially relevant.87 Focusing on the textual evidence of Mark she concluded
that “Mark might be better understood not as a single document composed by
one person but as a specific tradition taking shape in an extended performance
of voice and of hand.”88 Broadly viewing the textual plurality of ancient gospel
traditions, she suggested that in the case of Mark one ought to imagine “not
a virtual original, nor even [make an effort] to reconstruct ‘the best accessible
text,’ … but rather [deal with] several actual manuscripts r epresenting perform-
ances of Mark.”89 In effect she was making the point that Mark’s pluriformity is
not a deviation from the norm, nor an aberration to be corrected by an assumed
original, but rather a textual condition that has to be accepted as foundational.
Although Larsen did not discuss Wire’s study, they both agree that there was an
ongoing pluriform Markan tradition, with Wire putting the focus more on the
performative aspects, and Larsen on chirographic Fortschreibung.
A significant step in dealing with Mark’s incomplete apomnēmoneumata,
Larsen explains, was taken by Matthew. Again, a reading of Papias is crucially
important to his argument. As reported by Papias, “So while Matthew arranged
(synetaxato) the logia in the Hebrew dialect, everyone interpreted (or explained)
these (tauta = logia) to the best of his ability” (Hist. eccl. 3.39.16). Accordingly,
Matthew did not write a separate gospel, but took the Markan logoi and arranged
them in an orderly framework (synetaxato). Thus, even though Matthew contin-
ued the Markan tradition, he did what Mark had not managed to accomplish:
“he adds taxis to the logia.”90 Here we observe Larsen moving toward a concept
of gospel interrelationships that is about to break with the conventional source-
critical model. Matthew’s relation to Mark, he argues, represents a textual
overlap that “fits well within the growth of the single-fluid tradition in light of
ancient writing practices among Roman writers.”91 That being the case, the Mat-
thean text appears to be located in a continuing tradition of Fortschreibung that
had its beginnings with Mark’s textualization of oral tradition. Backing up the
thesis, Larsen theorizes that at a stage when Mark and Matthew circulated still
without titles and ascribed authors, they may have been viewed not as discrete
books, but as “continuing the same unfinished textual tradition of ‘the gospel’
more broadly understood.”92 In all, it was a process whose principal impulse
was not to stabilize the tradition, but, quite the opposite, to update it as a living
tradition.
87 A. C. Wire, The Case for Mark Composed in Performance, BPC 3 (Eugene, OR: Wipf &
Stock, 2011).
88 Wire, Case for Mark, 36.
89 Wire, Case for Mark, 39.
It is of paramount importance to understand that Larsen posits a thesis of

“competing gospel textuality discourses.”93 Readers are being asked to show
sensitivity not toward single definitions of gospel genre, but toward intrinsically
ambiguous gospel discourses, a certain fluidity of key terms, and toward process-
es that have as yet not arrived at an unambiguous genre definition of the gospel.
With regard to the second and third centuries, Larsen describes the emergence
of a different discourse that began to look back on the gospels and deliberate
their literary identity and authorship. It was a period when the designation of
“gospel” was in the process of becoming established. Irenaeus, for example,
toward the end of the second century, was the earliest witness who viewed the
gospels as stable, authored books (Haer. 3.1.1). But while he called Matthew,
Luke and John “gospels,” he still refrained from assigning the designation of
“gospel” to Mark. It seems that there was no such thing as a designated “gospel
of Mark” prior to the end of the second century. Clement of Alexandria, at the
end of the second and the beginning of the third century, called Mark, Mat-
thew, Luke, and John “gospels,” yet he also retained the earlier label of Mark
as hypomnēmata (Eusebius, Hist. eccl. 2.15). Origen in the third century and
Eusebius in the fourth who were inclined to think of the gospels as stable texts
still held on to the label of hypomnēmata. Moreover, Eusebius uses the verbal
form of apomnēmoneu* multiple times. Larsen cautions us not to assume a rapid
and universal acceptance of the designation of “gospel.” Obviously, the gospels
as living memory traditions versus their identity as stable books assigned to
authors were competing concepts far into the fourth century.
E. Epilogue
All three parts of this paper raise questions about a totalizing classificatory ge-
neric grid being imposed upon the gospel narrative. In the first part I endeavor-
ed to show that Burridge is struggling with the alternate options of an original,
authoritative versus a malleable, unstable concept of genre. In view of these well-
developed profiles of a realist versus a nominalist conceptualization, I found
his preferred “middle ground” underdeveloped. For all practical purposes, he
aims at “mastering the genre,” rather than developing a “middle ground.” But
I also stated that the genre question entails a theoretical dilemma on which our
medieval forebears already had cut their teeth, and which does not, in my view,
lend itself to a clean solution.
In the second part I pleaded for recognition of the fundamental factor of the
gospel’s narrative form. If the theory of gospel genre is to have any credibility, it
needs to integrate narrative so as to allow it to play its part in the genre discourse.

Narrative criticism, I suggested, had revealed an intricate network of narrative

causalities and regulating mechanisms that should not be left unacknowledged
in any consideration of genre. Notably the omniscient point of view appears to
perform functions that Burridge had assigned to genre. Hence my question: is
genre really the sole key to understanding a gospel?
While these first two parts were more of a theoretical kind, the third part
examined the historical emergence of the gospel tradition and explored how the
gospel genre fared in the context of ancient oral-scribal communication practices.
Using the recent work by Larsen, I pleaded for the acceptance of the concept of
a Markan tradition. Assuming the context of an oral-scribal, fluid and multiform
culture, we are being challenged to dishabituate ourselves from notions of stable
books, controlling authorial personalities, and, last not least, a defining generic
fixed point. “Mastering the genre” does not seem to be the appropriate interpre-
tive approach to this communicative environment. If we are to take the scribal,
papyrological realities on the ground seriously, it will take time to fully grasp
the consequences that “we do not have four gospels but thousands of different
gospel texts, as each one of those thousands differ from one another.”94 Instead of
refocusing attention on a textual, historical, or generic fixed point, it is the given
plurality we need to respect. Perhaps even more difficult will be the understand-
ing of the continuing processes of a tradition in which “[t]he ‘best’ text is not the
first, the original, or the ‘final’ but, rather, the most recent, the most improved,
the most useful.”95 We are dealing with a concept of tradition that harmonizes
well with the model of mnemohistory as a continuous reconstructive remem-
bering of the past in the interest of shaping group identity in the present.96
Genre does not seem to have been a determining factor in this early environ-
ment, whereas memory is inscribed into the tradition from its very inception. If
there is a designation running through the early tradition it is apomnēmoneu-
mata and its cognate terms, which do not, as far as I can see, show any affinity
with bios. Huebenthal saw the significance of the early function of remembering
very clearly: “In the end, it is the notion of remembering, or a certain under-
standing of the concept, that could have become a leading category in the wake
of ancient witnesses. But it did not.”97 The subsequent and ultimately dominant
94 Larsen, Gospels before the Book, 183 n. 20.

96 J. Assmann, Moses the Egyptian: The Memory of Egypt in Western Monotheism (Cam-
bridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1997); Huebenthal, Das Markusevangelium; W. H.
Kelber, “The Works of Memory: Christian Origins and MnemoHistory – A Response,” in
Memory, Tradition, and Text: Uses of the Past in Early Christianity, ed. A. Kirk and T. Thatcher,
SemeiaSt 52 (Atlanta: SBL, 2005), 221–48, repr. in Kelber, Imprints, Voiceprints, and Footprints,
265–96.
97 Huebenthal, Das Markusevangelium: 18: “Letztlich ist es der Begriff der Erinnerung
oder ein gewisses Verständnis derselben, der im Gefolge der antiken Zeugnisse eine leitende
Kategorie hätte werden können.”
designation appears to have been euaggelion. In my view, this development de-

serves much closer attention. A number of questions come to mind. Precisely
what was intended in the gradual shift from apomnēmoneumata to euaggelion?
Over time, were different meanings associated with euaggelion? Was euaggelion
meant to be a generic classification? And if so, was it understood to have been
shaped on the model of a Graeco-Roman biography? From the historical point
of view, should genre criticism not be interested in raising and addressing
these questions? Is it possible, I should like to continue, that the principal her-
meneutical impulse of the traditioning processes in the early centuries was not
to keep the tradition in line with a generic mastermind, but rather to keep it alive
through a scribal-oral-memorial dynamism? Is it conceivable that the tradition
was thriving not by compliance with a cultural fixed point but by remaining in
play? And finally, could it not be argued that Mark in this whole process was
the least likely candidate for a bios determination? Was it not precisely the fact
that Mark had failed to live up to genre expectations that had set the plurality of
remembrances into motion?
What Is a Genre?
Contemporary Genre Theory and the Gospels
Michal Beth Dinkler
A. Introduction
One finds in contemporary Gospel scholarship several common claims regard-

ing genre. First, scholars generally take it for granted that genre is significant and
ubiquitous. Unlike previous generations, most will now agree with the familiar
Bakhtinian dictum that all discourse is generic – or, to put it in Derridean terms,
that there simply “is no genreless text.”1 Second, virtually all NT scholars are
cognizant of the fact that generic features influence both authorial practices
and readerly expectations. As such, discussions of genre are simultaneously
prescriptive and descriptive, responsive and reactive.2 Third, following Alas-
tair Fowler’s famous quip, “Genre is much less of a pigeon hole than a pigeon,”
most now recognize the problem with pigeonholing texts into discrete, mutually
exclusive categories.3 It has become typical to disavow and disparage the sharp
classificatory demarcations of earlier discussions, and to declare instead that
genres are ambiguous, “changing, and inherently fuzzy.”4
And yet, in the face of these common assertions, consensus about the Gospel
genre continues to elude us. NT scholars have discerned generic similarities
between the four canonical Gospels and Greco-Roman bioi (Burridge, Shuler,
Phillips, Talbert, Frickenschmidt); portions of the Hebrew Bible and other
1 M. M. Bakhtin, “The Problem of Speech Genres,” in idem, Speech Genres and Other Late
Essays, ed. C. Emerson and M. Holquist, trans. V. W. McGee (Austin, TX: University of Texas,
1986), 87–129; J. Derrida, “The Law of Genre,” Critical Inquiry 7/1 (1980): 55–81, 65.
2 How ancient writers and readers conceived of genre and how genre functions in the
readerly experience are different questions, though scholars often conflate them. See the def-
initional distinctions in J. Frow, Genre, New Critical Idiom (London: Routledge, 2005), esp. 10.
3 E. g., D. L. Smith and Z. L. Kostopoulos recently wrote: “With Derrida, we affirm that
all texts ‘participate in one or more genres.’ We particularly appreciate his emphasis on ‘par-
ticipation’ rather than ‘belonging’; this distinction seems to parallel Fowler’s contrast between
genre-as-pigeon and genre-as-pigeonhole” (“Biography, History and the Genre of Luke-Acts,”
NTS 63 [2017]: 390–410, 406).
4 Fowler, Kinds of Literature: An Introduction to the Theory of Genres and Modes (Ox-
ford: Clarendon, 1982), 37; Frow, Genre, 52. See, similarly, D. Duff, ed., Modern Genre Theory
(Harlow: Longman, 2000), xiii.
78 Michal Beth Dinkler
Jewish literature (Wills, Vines); Greco-Roman drama (Via, Parsenios); popular

Greek novels (Tolbert); ancient epic (Bonz, MacDonald); Hellenistic histori-
ography (van Unnik, Plümacher, Marguerat); Jewish apologetic historiography
(Sterling); and institutional history (Cancik). I could go on.
Clearly, the jury is still out on which body/ies of ancient literature are the
most appropriate generic comparanda for the Gospels.5 Alan Bale summarizes:
“There are many competing claims and most of them have too much merit to be
dismissed entirely.”6 How can such a seemingly simple question as “What are the
Gospels?” have led to such a dizzying array of scholarly proposals? How can so
many plausible possibilities fail to convince?
The chapter unfolds this way: Because current considerations of the Gospel
genre have an instructive prehistory, I will briefly touch on the problems with
previous approaches and why they continue to hold sway despite our collective
recognition that genres are “changing, and inherently fuzzy.”7 Then, I will turn
to contemporary genre theory in order to propose that we shift from consid-
ering genre in terms of classification to seeing genre as a dynamic, dialogical
mode of communication. Obviously, delineating the inner workings of how the
Gospels communicate generically is a much larger project than anything I could
attempt here. Still, the chapter closes with a few suggestions regarding the ways
the Gospels function as narrative.
B. Preliminaries:
Some Problems with Genre Theory
Debates about genre stall for (at least) two reasons. One is that, although com-
parison undergirds all discussions of genre, we have a troublesome tendency
to make comparative assessments without thinking critically about the act of
5 Relatedly, the jury is also still out on whether the appellation of “first Christian historian”
belongs to “Mark,” to “Luke,” or to neither. M. Dibelius, “Der erste christliche Historiker,” in
Aus der Arbeit der Universität 1946/47, ed. H. von Campenhausen, Schriften der Universität
Heidelberg 3 (Berlin: Springer, 1948), 112–25; Eng. trans., “The First Christian Historian,” in
idem, Studies in the Acts of the Apostles, ed. H. Greeven, trans. M. Ling (New York: Scribner,
1956), 123–37. Dibelius inspired D. Marguerat, The First Christian Historian: Writing the “Acts
of the Apostles,” trans. K. McKinney, G. J. Laughery, and R. Bauckham, SNTSMS 121 (Cam-
bridge: Cambridge University Press, 2002). More recently, C. C. Black has countered that the
appellation more appropriately belongs to the author of the earliest Gospel, Mark (“Mark as
Historian of God’s Kingdom,” CBQ 71 [2009]: 64–83). Most recently, D. P. Moessner has argued
that the verb παρηκολουθέω used in the Lukan preface (1:3) in fact “placards one trained in
a tradition and not the judicious labors of an historian’s research” (“Luke as Tradent and Her-
meneut: ‘A s One Who Has a Thoroughly Informed Familiarity with All the Events from the Top’
[παρηκολουθηκότι ἄνωθεν πᾶσιν ἀκριβῶς, Luke 1:3],” NovT 58 [2016]: 259–300, 295).
6 A. J. Bale, Genre and Narrative Coherence in the Acts of the Apostles, LNTS 514 (London:
T&T Clark, 2014), 7.
7 Fowler, Kinds of Literature, 37.
What Is a Genre? 79
comparison itself. Choosing comparanda can be tricky business. On the one

hand, a critic can limit comparisons narrowly to one (often predetermined)
type of text. Of course, doing so obscures other possible resonances. This is
Adela Yarbro Collins’s critique of Richard Burridge. Arguing that “Burridge’s
case for defining the Gospels as bioi appears strong in large part because he did
not seriously consider any alternative,” Yarbro Collins points out specifically
that Burridge neglects parallels between the Gospels and ancient Jewish texts.8
Recently, some have taken a more expansive approach to choosing potential
comparanda. Daniel L. Smith and Zachary L. Kostopoulos, for example, pro-
pose to read Luke-Acts “as a unified narrative influenced by and modelled after
a wide range of Greek prose narratives, rather than representing one genre in
particular.”9 Drew W. Billings writes that we ought to “broaden the horizon in
which we look for … analogies” to include non-literary evidence such as monu-
ments and inscriptions.10 In my view, an expansive approach to choosing com-
paranda is preferable to a narrow one, but the inevitable question arises: where
should we stop, and how do we make those delimiting decisions? We cannot
expand comparanda indefinitely.
When we compare texts, we often operate under the mistaken impression
that similarities and differences are obviously “there” in those texts, and that by
simply “discovering” them, the scholar can determine definitively what a Gospel
“is.” But comparisons are scholarly constructions based on our own critical
choices. As Jonathan Z. Smith observes in Drudgery Divine:
A comparison is a disciplined exaggeration in the service of knowledge. It lifts out and
strongly marks certain features within difference as being of possible intellectual signifi-
cance, expressed in the rhetoric of their being “like” in some stipulated fashion. Compar-
ison provides the means by which we “re-vision” phenomena as our data in order to solve
our theoretical problems.11
When it comes to genre, it is the critic who “lifts out and strongly marks” sim-
ilarities and differences as possibly significant. Sometimes, differences between
texts appear significant to us because they reaffirm (and thereby reify) artificial
categories we already have in mind, such as a problematic Jewish/Hellenistic di-
chotomy or preconceived notions about aesthetic eloquence and the lack there-
of. Our conclusions about genre are contingent on our choices of comparanda
and the assumptions that (often subconsciously) animate them.
The second reason debates about genre stall is because most critics consider
the end goal of generic analysis to be classification. NT scholars have increasingly
8 A. Yarbro Collins, “Genre and the Gospels,” JR 75/2 (1995): 239–46, 241, emphasis added.
9 Smith and Kostopoulos, “Biography, History and the Genre of Luke-Acts,” 390.
10 D. W. Billings, Acts of the Apostles and the Rhetoric of Roman Imperialism (Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press, 2017), 18.
11 J. Z. Smith, Drudgery Divine: On the Comparison of Early Christianities and the Religions
of Late Antiquity (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1990), 52.
recognized complexities in genre identification, and some have drawn profitably

on two major developments in contemporary genre theory – family resemblance
theory and prototype theory. Nevertheless, participants in discussions about the
Gospel genre still seem almost inescapably preoccupied with the problem of
classification. As Jonathan Z. Smith underscores, we make comparisons in order
“to solve our theoretical problems.”12 In contrast to many biblical scholars, critics
in the field of literary theory have moved beyond classificatory conceptions of
genre to a different set of theoretical problems. They seek an understanding of
genre as a mode of communication. My main contention is simple: to the extent
that any approach remains focused on classification or categorization, it fails to
do justice to the ways that genre works.13
What if, rather than asking classificatory questions about what genre the
Gospels are, we ask instead how the Gospels communicate qua genre? What if,
instead of beginning with the question, What is a Gospel?, we took more time
with the fundamental question, What is a Genre? and the host of related inter-
pretive questions that arise from that one (e. g., How does genre work? How do
we know what we claim to know about genres? and Why do we want to know
about genre in the first place?) Genre theorists push Gospel scholars to see that
it is necessary to flip our traditional scholarly script. Our answers to questions
about genre profoundly shape our approaches to the Gospels, and must be
carefully addressed before our work on the Gospel genre can proceed. Engaging
explicitly with advancements in contemporary genre theory can help us do so.
First, though, I will lay out the dominant approaches to genre in modern Gospel
studies.
C. Previous Approaches:

Classifying the Gospel Genre
Literary theorist Thomas O. Beebee proposes the following taxonomy to de-

scribe the four major ways genre has been conceived in the modern period:
(1) production-oriented assessments, or “genre as rules”;
(2) evolutionary growth, or “genre as species”;
(3) formal analysis, or “genre as patterns of textual features”; and
(4) socially-constructed expectations, or “genre as reader conventions.”14
12 Smith, Drudgery Divine, 52.

13 See, e. g., Bale, Genre and Narrative Coherence, 220.
14 T. O. Beebee, The Ideology of Genre: A Comparative Study of Generic Instability (Uni-
versity Park, PA: Pennsylvania State University, 1994), 2–3. More recently, see B. Neumann
and A. Nünning, “Einleitung: Probleme, Aufgaben und Perspektiven der Gattungstheorie und
Gattungsgeschichte,” in Gattungstheorie und Gattungsgeschichte, ed. M. Gymnich, B. Neumann,
and A. Nünning (Trier: Wissenschaftlicher Verlag Trier, 2007), 1–30, esp. 3.
What Is a Genre? 81
To these, we can add a fifth category. After Beebee’s summary in 1994, genre
theorists shifted toward more flexible views of genres as:
(5) “dynamic and evolving categories”15 that function, in Frow’s words, as “a set of con-
ventional and highly organized constraints on the production and interpretation of
meaning.”16
In NT scholarship, these conceptions of genre have overlapped considerably,

but the descriptions provide helpful language for discussing broad trends in
approaches to the Gospel genre.
One prominent mode of analysis has been for Gospel scholars to refer back
to classical theoretical discussions of genre. Indeed, for most of its long history,
genology (the study of genres) has defined genre in terms of established, conven-
tional literary rules. Ancient theorists discussed genre as stable, consistent and
clearly determinable. As Hindy Najman puts it, “No play could be both a tragedy
and a comedy in fifth century BCE Greece.”17 Aristotle, for instance, writes in his
Poetics: “[E]pic and tragic poetry, comedy and dithyrambic … are all varieties of
mimēsis, differing from each other in three respects, the media, the objects, and
the mode of mimēsis” (1, 1447a).18 Or take Horace, who asks, “If I fail to keep and
do not understand these well-marked shifts and shades of poetic forms, why am
I hailed as poet? Why through false shame do I prefer to be ignorant rather than
to learn?” (Ars 86–89).19 Neither ancient theorists nor ancient poets “regard[ed]
genre itself as a slippery or even a problematic concept. [Instead] genre was felt
to be … immanent and unambiguous.”20
As influential as the classical view of “genre as rules” has been, the better
part of twentieth century Gospel scholarship was dominated by conceptions of
15 B. G. Wright III, “Joining the Club: A Suggestion about Genre in Early Jewish Texts,”
DSD 17 (2010): 289–314, 292. C. Mitchell makes a similar addition to Beebee’s taxonomy in
“Power, Eros, and Biblical Genres,” in Bakhtin and Genre Theory in Biblical Studies, ed. R. Boer,
SemeiaSt 63 (Atlanta: SBL, 2007), 31–42, esp. 31. So previously, T. Todorov, Genres in Dis-
course, trans. C. Porter (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1990), 15.
16 Frow, Genre, 10, emphasis added.
17 H. Najman, “The Idea of Biblical Genre: From Discourse to Constellation,” in Prayer
and Poetry in the Dead Sea Scrolls and Related Literature: Essays in Honor of Eileen Schuller on
the Occasion of Her 65th Birthday, ed. J. Penner, K. M. Penner, and C. Wassen, STDJ 98 (Leiden:
Brill, 2011), 307–21, 311.
18 Trans. M. E. Hubbard, in A New Aristotle Reader, ed. J. L. Ackrill (Oxford: Clarendon,
1987), 540.
19 Trans. H. R. Fairclough, Horace: Satires, Epistles Ars Poetica, LCL 194 (London: Heine-
mann; Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1955), 457–59.
20 J. Farrell, “Classical Genre in Theory and Practice,” New Literary History 34 (2003): 383–
408, 386. On genre in the ancient world broadly, see, e. g., S. J. Harrison, Generic Enrichment
in Vergil and Horace (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2007); W. W. Batstone and G. Tissol,
eds., Defining Genre and Gender in Latin Literature: Essays Presented to William S. Anderson on
His Seventy-Fifth Birthday, Lang Classical Studies 15 (New York: Lang, 2005); M. Depew and
D. Obbink, eds., Matrices of Genre: Authors, Canons, and Society, Center for Hellenic Studies
Colloquia 4 (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2000).
genre “as patterns of textual features.” NT form critics like Rudolf Bultmann,
who famously proposed that the Christian Gospel represents a sui generis lit-
erary genre, held that the early church’s unprecedented circumstances, coupled
with the unique kerygmatic content of the gospel message, gave rise to a new
literary form without parallel or precedent in the ancient world.21 Consequently,
any ancient literary comparanda to which one might point could “serve only
to throw the uniqueness of the Gospel into still stronger relief …. It is thus an
original creation of Christianity.”22 These are Bultmann’s final words in his
enormously influential History of the Synoptic Tradition; as Burridge points out,
“they are also the last words on the question of the genre of the gospels for nearly
half a century.”23 Burridge himself, however, prefers the “genre as species” view:
An obvious model for generic development is some form of evolutionary process ….
Genre evolves in the way a species evolves, or an institution. Like an institution, it is
circumscribed by the confines of period and locality; as cultures change, so genres reflect
that change ….24
Scholars who see the import of texts as contextually-determined and dependent

on cultural change often view genre in terms of socially-constructed expecta-
tions, or “reader conventions.” Reader-response theorists, for example, remind
us that implied authors and audiences always draw on their respective extra-
textual repertoires to shape their understanding. Situating the Gospels in their
sociohistorical and literary contexts is both admirable and necessary because,
as Heta Pyrhönen writes, “generic competence fluctuates between general fixed
interpretive guidelines, functioning as rules of thumb, and the situational judg-
ments of writers and readers about particular texts.”25
These previous views of genre have been largely rejected for a number of rea-
sons. For one thing, genre has always been more complicated than the classical
theoretical discussions from antiquity make them appear. Even Aristotle, dis-
cussing the six elements of tragedy, recognizes, “Not a few tragedians do in fact
use these as qualitative elements; indeed virtually every play has spectacle, the
21 See, e. g., R. Bultmann, History of the Synoptic Tradition, trans. J. Marsh, rev. ed. (Ox-
ford: Basil Blackwell, 1968), esp. 371–74; idem, “The Gospels (Form),” in Twentieth-Century
Theology in the Making, vol. 1: Themes in Biblical Theology, ed. J. Pelikan, trans. R. A. Wilson
(London: Fontana, 1969), 86–92, 89.
22 Bultmann, History of the Synoptic Tradition, 373–74; cf. idem, Theology of the New Tes-
tament, trans. K. Grobel, 2 vols. (New York: Scribner, 1951, 1955), 1:86.
23 R. Burridge, What Are the Gospels? A Comparison with Graeco-Roman Biography, 2nd
ed. (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 2004), 11.
25 H. Pyrhönen, “Genre,” in The Cambridge Companion to Narrative, ed. D. Herman
(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2007), 109–24, 118. See also T. Kent, “Interpretation
and Genre Perception,” Semiotica 56 (1985): 133–46, 134–36; idem, Interpretation and Genre:
The Role of Generic Perception in the Study of Narrative Texts (Lewisburg, PA: Bucknell Uni-
versity Press, 1986), 16–19.
What Is a Genre? 83
mimēsis of character, plot, verbal expression, song, and the mimēsis of intellect,”
but then he turns to “what the arrangement of the particular actions should be
like” (Poet. 6, 1450a–b).26 Classicists especially have been underscoring the com-
plexities evident in ancient discussions of genre, which oscillate between de-
scriptions of literary forms as they are, and prescriptions of what – according to a
given ancient writer – they ought to be; ancient theorists in fact elide description
and prescription.27 Joseph Farrell helpfully highlights the discrepancy: although
ancient theorists discussed genre as “immanent and unambiguous,” in practice,
“testing and even violating generic boundaries was not merely an inevitable and
accidental consequence of writing in any genre, but an important aspect of the
poet’s craft.”28 This is why, for example, Daniel Smith and Zachary Kostopoulos
prefer “privileging ancient practice over ancient theory.”29
Some prior approaches to genre have also been based on problematic En-
lightenment-based assumptions about texts and history. Often, twentieth-
century scholars who employed historical-critical methods envisioned a kind
of devolution from early pure, authentic “original” materials (what some would
label “factual”) to later contaminated, inauthentic accounts (what some would
label “fictional”).30 Martin Dibelius, for instance, discussed literary forms that
incorporate features from more than one generic category as hybrid “inter-
mediate” forms (Mischformen).31 A common underlying assumption was that
historical data decays over time, such that the longer the chronological distance
between the present and the past, the more is lost and the harder it is to recover a
given historical reality. Consequently, the reasoning goes, earlier examples of the
Gospel genre (e. g., the canonical Gospels, sometimes the Gospel of Thomas)
more reliably reflect Jesus’s historical reality than later accounts.
This view of history has been decisively challenged from multiple directions.
For one thing, a Rankean past “wie es eigentlich gewesen” is, strictly speaking,
26 Trans. Hubbard, in A New Aristotle Reader, 544–45.

27 See, e. g., P. Alexander, “A Typology of Intertextual Relations Based on the Manchester-
Durham Typology of Anonymous and Pseudepigraphic Jewish Literature of Antiquity,” in
Between Text and Text: The Hermeneutics of Intertextuality in Ancient Cultures and Their
Afterlife in Medieval and Modern Times, ed. M. Bauks, W. Horowitz, and A. Lange, JAJSup 6
(Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 2013), 66–85, esp. 69; see also the texts cited in n. 20
above.
28 Farrell, “Classical Genre in Theory and Practice,” 386.
29 Smith and Kostopoulos, “Biography, History and the Genre of Luke-Acts,” 390.
30 Critiquing the fact/fiction division as unhelpful for ancient narrative, see, e. g., M. B.
Dinkler, “The End of Fact v. Fiction: Reality, Experientiality, and Reflexivity in Ancient
Narratives,” Fictionality, Factuality, Reflexivity, ed. E. Fülöp and G. Priest, Narratologia (Berlin:
De Gruyter, [forthcoming]); M. D. Litwa, How the Gospels Became History: Jesus and Med-
iterranean Myths (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2019).
31 M. Dibelius, From Tradition to Gospel, trans. B. L. Woolf (New York: Scribner, 1935), 43.
Of course, this is circular reasoning, since any discrete formal categories are created by the form
critic based on the texts. Bultmann admitted this (History of the Synoptic Tradition, 5).
irrecoverable.32 The “linguistic turn” in the twentieth century led to rejections

of historical positivism, and facilitated destabilizations of “fact” and “fiction” as
generic categories. Not only that, but when it comes to narration, distinctions
between fact and fiction, so often portrayed in scholarship as determinable based
on predictable style and content, can be quite fluid: “[D]egrees of fictionality
don’t lead to a tipping point at which a previously nonfictive discourse becomes
fictive.”33
This is especially true with respect to ancient texts.34 Many have shown how
generic lines were murkier in antiquity than twentieth-century scholars typically
presumed, often differing within and across cultures. Not only that, but ancient
historians themselves allowed for a wider range of creative compositional strate-
gies than today’s standards for the writing of (especially academic, or scholarly)
“nonfiction.” So classicist Christina Shuttlesworth Kraus: “Ancient historians
constructed their works with techniques that were as much at home in oratory
or the novel as with what we might call ‘historical research.’”35 It is well-known,
for example, that without the benefit of eyewitness testimony or automated re-
cordings (which are, of course, themselves subject to interpretation), the ancient
historian Thucydides freely composed speeches and set them into the mouths of
his historical characters, while another great historian, Herodotus, modeled his
writing on Homeric epic.36 Many seem to have cared more about verisimilitude
than veracity. Ancient writers also recognized and reflected on the complex
relationships between representation and reality, history and mendacity, myth
and truth.37
32 The phrase is found in L. von Ranke, Geschichten der romanischen und germanischen
Völker von 1494 bis 1514, 3rd ed. (Leipzig: Duncker & Humblot, 1885), vii, though what Ranke
meant by it is debated.
33 H. S. Nielsen, J. Phelan, and R. Walsh, “Fictionality as Rhetoric: A Response to Paul
Dawson,” Narrative 23/1 (2015): 101–11, 104; see also, by the same authors, “Ten Theses about
Fictionality,” ibid., 61–73.
34 On “fact” and “fiction” in the ancient world, see, e. g., G. W. Bowersock, Fiction as His-
tory: Nero to Julian, Sather Classical Lectures 58 (Berkeley, CA: University of California Press,
1994); C. Gill and T. P. Wiseman, eds., Lies and Fiction in the Ancient World (Exeter: University
of Exeter Press, 1993).
35 C. S. Kraus, “Historiography and Biography,” in The Oxford Handbook of Roman Studies,
ed. A. Barchiesi and W. Scheidel (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2010), 403–19, 415.
36 On this, see, e. g., C. W. Fornara, The Nature of History in Ancient Greece and Rome, Eidos
(Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 1983); A. W. Mosley, “Historical Reporting in the
Ancient World,” NTS 12 (1965–1966): 10–26; M. Grant, The Ancient Historians (New York:
Scribner, 1970). Note that ancient historians did not always agree with one another. Ancient
Greek historians like Thucydides in the 5th c. BCE (1.22.2–4), or Polybius in the 2nd c. BCE
(9.2.1–2), differed from each other, just as they differed in turn from so-called Greek “novelists”
like Achilles Tatius or Xenophon.
37 For example, insistence on the reliability of an account often belies anxiety over false
testimony (e. g., Homer, Il. 15.158–159). Lucian, who famously asserts in his satirical A True
Story that he tells nothing but lies (Ver. hist. 1.4), nevertheless insists that his text should prompt
substantive speculation (θεωρίαν, Ver. hist. 1.2).
What Is a Genre? 85
Unfortunately, modern conceptions of the fact/fiction generic binary

continue to inflect discussions about what the Gospels “are.” Cornelis Bennema
represents one extreme: Bennema’s presumptive starting point is that the Gos-
pels are “nonfictional in nature.”38 Dennis R. MacDonald represents the other
extreme, declaring definitively that “Mark and Luke knew that they were writing
fictions.”39 Both claims imply that fact and fiction are stable, clearly delineated
generic classifications. They are not, nor have they ever been. Treating fact and
fiction as self-evidently distinguishable genres creates a false sense of determina-
bility and masks the “inevitable fuzziness around the edges of genres.”40
As Gospel scholars began to deem previous approaches insufficient, they
sought alternative ways to conceive of genre. Instead of static and stable clas-
sifications, they recast genre in terms of “dynamic and evolving categories.”41
Some found answers in family resemblance theory and prototype theory.
Family resemblance theory derives from the Wittgensteinian concept of
“family resemblance” as a logical semantic category: examples of a certain
genre can have “family resemblances,” without necessarily all sharing the same
characteristics.42 The idea of family resemblances has proven attractive to NT
scholars. Burridge, for instance, in What Are The Gospels? refers approvingly to
family resemblance theory, while Justin Marc Smith declares in his monograph,
Why βίος? (2015), that genres should be “understood in terms of family resem-
blances.”43 For many scholars, this seems to make intuitive sense, and offers the
added benefit of avoiding essentialism. Genres are identifiable because they
exhibit similarities, but those similarities are not absolute.
One can see the appeal. Although all four Gospel writers tell stories about
Jesus, their narrational strategies draw on a variety of ancient literary norms and
conventions. To take an obvious example, Luke combines first-person narration
38 C. Bennema, A Theory of Character in New Testament Narrative (Minneapolis: Fortress,

2014), 64. See the similar assertions in P. Merenlahti and R. Hakola, “Reconceiving Narrative
Criticism,” in Characterization in the Gospels: Reconceiving Narrative Criticism, ed. D. Rhoads
and K. Syreeni, JSNTSup 184 (Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 1999), 13–48, 40–43.
39 D. R. MacDonald, Mythologizing Jesus: From Jewish Teacher to Epic Hero (Lanham:
Rowman & Littlefield, 2015), 142.
40 J. J. Collins, “Epilogue: Genre Analysis and the Dead Sea Scrolls,” DSD 17 (2010): 418–30,
421; similarly, Frow, Genre, 52; and H. Dubrow, Genre, Critical Idiom 42 (London: Methuen,
1982), 31.
41 Wright, “Joining the Club,” 292.
42 Wittgenstein was writing about games, not literary genres (Philosophical Investigations,
trans. G. E. M. Anscombe, 2nd ed. [Oxford: Blackwell, 1958], 31–32), but Fowler (Kinds of Lit-
erature, 41) popularized and adapted Wittgenstein’s insights for literary genres. Cf. D. Fishelov,
“Genre Theory and Family Resemblance – Revisited,” Poetics 20 (1991): 123–38.
43 Burridge, What Are The Gospels?, esp. 38–43; J. M. Smith, Why Βίος? On the Relation-
ship Between Gospel Genre and Implied Audiences, LNTS 518 (London: Bloomsbury T&T
Clark, 2015), 62. See also D. Frickenschmidt, Evangelium als Biographie: Die vier Evangelien
im Rahmen antiker Erzählkunst, TANZ 22 (Tübingen: Francke, 1997). Cf. A. Yarbro Collins’s
review of Burridge, “Genre and the Gospels” (see n. 8 above).
with third-person narration, while Matthew, Mark, and John employ solely the
latter. The Gospels certainly support Michelle Borg’s and Graeme Miles’s claim
that, “No less than their modern counterparts, ancient genres were contested,
hybrid and ambiguous.”44
Still, family resemblance theory’s flexibility can also be its weakness. The
major criticism of this approach is that, taken to its logical extreme, “family
resemblance theory can make anything resemble anything.”45 For instance, it
would be very easy, when comparing the narration of the canonical Gospels, to
ignore the first-person Lukan prologue mentioned above and emphasize instead
their similarity: they resemble one another insofar as the majority of all four
accounts uses third-person narration. In other words, as Frow puts it, “using
likeness as the basis for a classification raises the problem of where dissimilarity
may be drawn.”46 This perspective can easily become skewed by overvaluing the
similarities between texts and overlooking the differences between them.
Prototype theory offers a corrective to the capaciousness of the family resem-
blance model. Built on the insights of the cognitive sciences, the main premise of
prototype theory is that humans identify and process all mental categories – in-
cluding genres – using a “logic of typicality.”47 We assume that certain members of
a category are prototypical, while others are peripheral. That is, humans identify
some features as more typical of a certain category or genre, while other features
are less central.48 Benjamin Wright describes three sets of variables comprising
a cognitive template: “(1) necessary or ‘compulsory’ properties (e. g., that a dog
is an animal); (2) ‘default’ properties (e. g., that a dog has four legs); (3) optional
properties (e. g., that the dog is black).”49 Prototypical exemplars thus form a
schema or template against which we judge each new example, revising and
amending as we confront new data. To give a basic illustration from the scientific
literature, the category “bachelor” is defined as “an unmarried adult male.” Yet,
44 M. Borg and G. Miles, “Introduction,” in Approaches to Genre in the Ancient World, ed.
M. Borg and G. Miles (Newcastle upon Tyne: Cambridge Scholars, 2013), 1–5, 1.
45 J. Swales, Genre Analysis: English in Academic and Research Settings (Cambridge: Cam-
bridge University Press, 1990), 51. Cf. D. Fishelov’s critique in Metaphors of Genre: The Role of
Analogies in Genre Theory (University Park, PA: Pennsylvania State University Press, 1993), 54.
46 Frow, Genre, 54.
47 Frow, Genre, 54. Prototype theory developed out of empirical research in linguistics, psy-
chology, and anthropology, and was later brought into conversations about genre. For useful
summaries of key concepts and figures related to prototype theory and human categorization
generally, see G. Lakoff, Women, Fire, and Dangerous Things: What Categories Reveal about the
Mind (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1987), 12–44.
48 E. Rosch, “Cognitive Representations of Semantic Categories,” Journal of Experimental
Psychology 104/3 (1975): 192–233.
49 Wright, “Joining the Club,” 295. See also J. M. Mandler, Stories, Scripts, and Scenes:
Aspects of Schema Theory (Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum, 1984); D. E. Rumelhart, “Schemata: The
Building Blocks of Cognition,” in Theoretical Issues in Reading Comprehension: Perspectives
from Cognitive Psychology, Linguistics, Artificial Intelligence, and Education, ed. R. J. Spiro, B. C.
Bruce, and W. F. Brewer, Psychology of Reading (Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum, 1980), 33–58.
What Is a Genre? 87
few consider the Pope to be a “bachelor,” because he is atypical with respect

to the Gestalt structure, or schema, in which a typical male progresses through
childhood into sexual maturity and marriage.50 The Pope thus represents the
proverbial exception that proves the rule.
As a form of graded categorization, prototype theory can assist with the goal
of parsing the Gospels’ literary genre(s) by providing an alternative “course
between trying to produce unassailable definitions of a particular genre and
relaxing into the irresponsibility of family resemblances.”51 Conceiving of genres
as flexible cognitive categories structured around prototypical exemplars frees
us to focus not only on stereotypical generic properties, but also on the import
of the default and optional properties of actual texts. That is, we can recognize
similarities between accounts that blend conceptually to create recognizable
narratives, even as variations in the midst of those prototypical commonalities
(e. g., optional variables like first- or third-person narration) can illuminate the
different kinds of rhetorical effects engendered in and by separate examples of
the Gospel genre. For instance, Elizabeth Evans Shively has recently argued with
respect to the ending of Mark, “A first-century audience that understood Mark
as bearing a resemblance to Greco-Roman biography would have recognized
the Gospel as a gestalt schema according to compulsory and default (or typical)
values,” and would have seen it as an example of that genre “even when it vio-
lates default values,” such as “providing suitable closure.”52 Literary prototypes
can share key structural similarities, concepts, and themes, while specific literary
elements may differ from text to text.53 In 2010, John Collins dubbed prototype
theory “the new messiah of generic analysis.”54 Oddly enough, though, relatively
few Gospel scholars have embraced this “new messiah.”
50 M. Sinding, “After Definitions: Genre, Categories, and Cognitive Science,” Genre 35

(2002): 181–219, 193–94.
51 Swales, Genre Analysis, 52.
52 E. E. Shively, “Recognizing Penguins: Audience Expectation, Cognitive Genre Theory,
and the Ending of Mark’s Gospel,” CBQ 80 (2018): 273–92, quotations from 283, 278.
53 Elsewhere, I proposed that we consider early Christian Gospel accounts vis-à-vis an Ide-
alized Cognitive Model (ICM) in which the trials and deaths of Christian believers are portrayed
narrativally as the result of the martyrs’ choices and as the inevitable culmination of God’s will
(“Genre Analysis and Early Christian Gospel Narratives: A Proposal,” in Sibyls, Scriptures, and
Scrolls: John Collins at Seventy, ed. J. Baden, H. Najman, and E. Tigchelaar, 2 vols., JSJSup 175
[Leiden: Brill, 2017], 1:314–36).
54 Collins, “Epilogue,” 419. There are a few notable exceptions. E. g., V. K. Robbins and the
Rhetoric of Religious Antiquity group have been exploring similar concepts within their unique
system of sociorhetorical criticism. Robbins, citing Lakoff, writes: “It gradually has become
evident that the sociorhetorical concept of ‘rhetorolect’ is, from the perspective of cognitive
science, some kind of Idealized Cognitive Model (ICM)” (Invention of Christian Discourse,
Volume 1, Rhetoric of Religious Antiquity 1 [Blandford Forum, UK: Deo, 2009], 104). A more
straightforward recent example is Shively’s “Recognizing Penguins” (see n. 52 above) in which
she demonstrates the advantages of bringing prototype theory to bear on a famously puzzling
Gospel passage (for her, the abrupt ending of the Gospel of Mark).
Prototype theory represents an advancement over previous approaches to

genre.55 In my view, however, the problem remains: All of the models discuss-
ed so far still focus on typological identification and demarcation – in a word,
classification. But genres do not exist or function in the same way that a bird
(prototypical or otherwise) exists. As René Wellek and Austin Warren write in
their classic work, Theory of Literature, “[genre] exists not as an animal exists or
even as a building, chapel, library, or capital exists.”56 Genres are categories of
meaning-making; they are based on normative conventions, but as aspects of so-
ciocultural systems of communication, they are also multivalent and malleable,
changing over time and across communities. I suggest, therefore, that we follow
the lead of literary theorists who have moved toward viewing genre as a mode
of communication.
D. Contemporary Approaches to Genre:

Moving from Classification to Communication
Contemporary genre theorists have recast genre as standardized modes of com-

munication that arise in response to particular exigencies. Catherine Schryer, for
instance, defines genre as “constellations of regulated improvisational strategies,”
a definition that allows her “to reconceptualize rules and conventions (terms that
seem to preclude choice) as strategies (a term that connotes choice) and thus ex-
plore questions related to agency.”57 By “agency,” Schryer means something more
complex than Gospel scholars’ standard notion of “authorial intent.” Literary
genre is constituted by complex dialogical interactions between textual features
(which are strategically determined by authors), and readerly perceptions of
those features (which are only conceivable within established communicative
situations).58 No part of this web of dynamic relations is simple.
As socially-constructed responses to particular exigencies, genres are indis-
solubly linked to their local historical context(s), but multiple contexts are always
operating at each of the three points of the “rhetorical triangle” (speaker, text,
and audience) – at any given moment in time, and as conditions change over
55 Of course, like any conceptual model, prototype theory also has its weaknesses; see
W. Croft and D. A. Cruse, Cognitive Linguistics (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press,
2004), 87–98. Lakoff treats misunderstandings and misapplications of prototype theory in
“Cognitive Models and Prototype Theory,” in Concepts: Core Readings, ed. E. Margolis and
S. Laurence (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1999), 391–421.
56 R. Wellek and A. Warren, Theory of Literature (New York: Harcourt, Brace, 1949), 226.
57 C. Schryer, “Walking a Fine Line: Writing Negative Letters in an Insurance Company,”
Journal of Business and Technical Communication 14 (2000): 445–97, 450, 451.
58 Relatedly, some literary theorists conceive of genre in terms of speech act theory as devel-
oped by linguists J. L. Austin, J. Searle and H. P. Grice, e. g., M. L. Pratt, Toward a Speech Act
Theory of Literary Discourse (Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press, 1977).
What Is a Genre? 89
time.59 The recursive relationship between communicator, message, and recip-

ient is never static or unidirectional. Carolyn R. Miller has helpfully described
this participatory view of genre in terms of “social action”: a genre represents a
kind of implicit social contract between authors and readers that is enacted and
performed in particular social contexts.60
Literary scholars frequently use the image of an institution to describe this
dynamic. Fredric Jameson, for instance, writes: “Genres are essentially literary
institutions, or social contracts between a writer and a specific public, whose
function is to specify the proper use of a particular cultural artifact.”61 Wellek
and Warren refer to genre similarly:
The literary kind is an “institution” – as Church, University, or State is an institution ….
One can work through, express oneself through, existing institutions, create new ones, or
get on, so far as possible, without sharing in politics or rituals; one can also join, but then
reshape institutions.62
Universities, for example, prioritize and valorize activities differently (e. g.,

research, teaching, service, etc.); distinct aspects of their identity (e. g., religious,
secular, public, private, etc.) shape their organizational policies and practices
differently; and they have different student bodies, faculties, curricular offerings,
and funding sources. Yet, they are all still recognizable as universities. This is, in
part, because accrediting bodies establish socially-determined criteria by which
a university is authorized to function as an institution of higher learning, and in
part because universities share the same functions (however loosely perceived)
of producing new knowledge and training people to fill certain roles in society.
As discussed above, texts, too, can exhibit different priorities or distinctive
features from one another and still be identified as the same genre. Typically,
like the institution of a university, they are identified as such because of socially-
determined criteria and shared sociorhetorical functions.
David Fishelov develops the metaphor further: just as “a professor is expected
to comply with certain patterns of action, and to interact with other role-players
(e. g., students) according to the structure and functions of an educational in-
stitution,” so are characters in the “comedy” genre, for example, “expected to
perform certain acts and to interact with other characters according to the struc-
tural principles of the literary ‘institution’ of comedy.”63 Genre works similarly
as “a conceptual orienting device,” shaping the conditions of reception and
59 J. Phelan, “Rhetoric/Ethics,” in Herman, Cambridge Companion to Narrative, 203–16,

212.
60 C. R. Miller, “Genre as Social Action,” Quarterly Journal of Speech 70 (1984): 151–67.
61 F. Jameson, “Magical Narratives: On the Dialectical Use of Genre Criticism,” in idem,
The Political Unconscious: Narrative as a Socially Symbolic Act (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University
Press, 1981), 103–50, 106.
62 Wellek and Warren, Theory of Literature, 226.
63 Fishelov, Metaphors of Genre, 86.
regulating our sense of how the constituent parts of a text fit together; in this
sense, there is a degree of communicative continuity over time and across com-
munities.64 When it comes to the Gospels, this means we ought to consider “the
constraints that the [Gospel] script imposes on cognition.”65
At the same time, while professors are expected to behave according to in-
stitutional principles, I suspect that all professors would balk at the idea that
we “belong” to our institutions. And professors often fail to behave according to
expectations. This anarchic behavior might be intentional – perhaps they wish to
disrupt unjust institutional practices – or unintentional – perhaps they mistreat
others because of unprocessed issues below the threshold of awareness. What-
ever the reason, the point is that (unless there are egregious violations) profes-
sors typically remain in their institutionally-assigned roles, participating in the
institution even when they do not behave according to institutional expectations.
We negotiate professorial identities within institutional strictures and structures.
That in and of itself means that institutions are always inevitably changing.
Genres, too, presuppose established communicative conventions (as opposed
to “belonging to” them), even as they are concomitantly “gesturing to them,
playing in and out of them, and in so doing, continually changing them.”66
The “orienting devices” and “constraints” of generic conventions are constantly
shifting as enculturation processes change. Todorov was right: genres are “born
from other genres. A new genre is always the transformation of one or several old
genres: by inversion, by displacement, by combination …. [Genre] is a system in
constant transformation.”67 Considering genres as modes of communication cre-
ates space for considering how genres accommodate and reshape various (sub-)
genres, subsuming, subverting, and/or re-employing them for new purposes.
This is common in biblical literature, where generic categories bleed and blur
into one another, sometimes even within one narrative.68 Harold W. Attridge has
described the heterogeneous mixing and mingling of generic conventions that
we find in the Gospels as “genre bending” – a phrase that puts me in mind of
Emily Dickinson’s line: “Tell all the truth, but tell it slant.”69 Rather than belong-
64 Depew and Obbink, “Introduction,” in Depew and Obbink, Matricies of Genre, 1–14, 6.
65 I. Czachesz, “The Gospel of Peter and the Apocryphal Acts of the Apostles: Using Cog-
nitive Science to Reconstruct Gospel Traditions,” in Das Evangelium nach Petrus: Text, Kon-
texte, Intertexte, ed. T. J. Kraus and T. Nicklas, TUGAL 158 (Berlin: De Gruyter, 2007), 245–61,
257–58.
66 C. A. Newsom, “Spying Out the Land: A Report from Genology,” in Boer, Bakhtin and
Genre Theory in Biblical Studies, 19–30, 21.
67 Todorov, Genres in Discourse, 15.
68 L. Ryken and T. Longman III, for example, declare that “Nearly every book in the Bible
exhibits a mixed-genre format in a degree unparalleled in other literature” (“Introduction,” in
A Complete Literary Guide to the Bible, ed. eidem [Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 1993], 15–39,
30). They go too far in their claims about the uniqueness of biblical literature’s “mixed-genre
format,” but they’re right to underscore the heterogeneity of genres.
69 Attridge, “Genre Bending in the Fourth Gospel,” JBL 121 (2002): 3–21; Dickinson, “Tell
What Is a Genre? 91
ing to static categories with brittle, breakable boundaries, genres communicate

by bending this way and slanting that way, adhering to expectations and flouting
them, often in the very same text.
Sometimes, “genre bending” occurs because, as Fishelov underscores, a writ-
er can intentionally choose not to play by, but to “stretch the generic rules.”70
Violations of genre expectations create their own forms of meaning. John 4,
for example – in which Jesus interacts with a Samaritan woman at a well – has
often been read as a deliberate exploitation of the betrothal type-scene from the
Hebrew Bible; the impact of the story turns on its divergence from expected
plot developments.71 Generic conventions thus represent a “vital part of the
literary communicative situation,” not because they objectively and completely
govern the communicative situation, but because they represent “a challenge, or
a horizon, against which the writer and his reader have to define themselves.”72
Classification cannot always account for readerly contingencies on the one
hand, or for limited knowledge of ancient contexts on the other. Certainly, a
text’s sociality is always embedded in and shaped by its sociohistorical locations.
At the same time, indeterminable answers to originary questions about the
Gospels can render even the “genre as reader conventions” classificatory model
problematic. Considering genre as a form of communication is the more fruitful
approach because it allows us to posit different readerly responses without
having to locate each Gospel in overly specific, fixed sociohistorical contexts. We
might assume broadly, for example, that the expectations of an implied reader
in the late-first century CE encountering a Gospel story for the first time would
differ from the expectations of a fourth-century reader who was familiar with
similar accounts from preceding centuries.73 The latter reader would be working
with a more established set of conventions, and would perceive divergences from
customary form(s) more readily.74
all the truth but tell it slant – (1263),” in The Poems of Emily Dickinson: Reading Edition, ed.
R. W. Franklin (Cambridge, MA: The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 1998).
71 See, e. g., E. Aitken, “At the Well of Living Water: Jacob Traditions in John 4,” in The Inter-
pretation of Scripture in Early Judaism and Christianity: Studies in Language and Tradition, ed.
C. A. Evans, JSPSup 33, SSEJC 7 (Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 2000), 342–52; J. E. Botha,
“Reader ‘Entrapment’ and Literary Device in John 4:1–42,” Neot 24 (1990): 37–47; J.‑A. Brant,
“Husband Hunting: Characterization and Narrative Art in the Gospel of John,” BibInt 4 (1996):
205–23.
73 “Implied readers” are the narrative’s intended recipients, who cooperate with and share
the “implied author’s” assumptions, as distinct from an actual, historical audience. I base
my use of these concepts on the foundational work of W. C. Booth, The Rhetoric of Fiction,
2nd ed. (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1983); W. Iser, The Implied Reader: Patterns
of Communication in Prose Fiction from Bunyan to Beckett (Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins
University Press, 1974); U. Eco, The Role of the Reader: Explorations in the Semiotics of Texts
(Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press, 1979).
74 Similarly, see H. Cancik, “Die Gattung Evangelium: Das Evangelium des Markus im
The distinction between previous conceptions of genre and the one I am ad-
vocating here is similar to Roland Barthes’s distinction between work and Text.75
For Barthes, while a work “is a fragment of substance [and] occupies a portion
of the spaces of books (for example, in a library),” a Text “is experienced only in
an activity, in a production. It follows that the Text cannot stop (for example,
at a library shelf ); its constitutive moment is traversal (notably, it can traverse
the work, several works).”76 Analogously, classificatory approaches conceive of
genre like a Barthesian work, while more contemporary approaches conceive
of genre like a Barthesian Text. The difference is that the Text-genre, “cannot be
caught up in a hierarchy, or even in a simple distribution of genres. What con-
stitutes it is on the contrary (or precisely) its force of subversion with regard to
the old classifications.”77 Conceiving of genre as a communicative mode allows
for flexible dynamism and textual regularities, moving us beyond the hierarchies
and “simple distributions” that typify “the old classifications.”
In sum: Before asking what the Gospels are, we should ask how genre works
as a mode of communication. When it comes to the Gospels, that communicative
mode, broadly speaking, is narrative. In the space I have remaining, then, I wish
to make a few suggestive remarks about narrative as a form of communication.
E. The Gospels: Communicating as Narrative

Whatever else one might say about the Gospel genre, it should be fairly non-
controversial to assert that on a basic level, the Gospels are ancient rhetorically-
shaped narratives that claim to be reliable records of recent events.78 This might
seem a truism, but it bears development in light of the conceptual shift I am
advocating vis-à-vis genre. The Gospels’ communicative potency is inextricably
bound up with their narrativity.79 They are (among other things) narrated attes-
tations of how their authors and cultures of origin construed and constructed
events that had recently transpired, including the life, death, and (in Mark, im-
plied) resurrection of the person of Jesus. As a form of communication, the Gos-
Rahmen der antiken Historiographie,” in Markus-Philologie: Historische, literargeschichtliche
und stilistische Untersuchungen zum zweiten Evangelium, ed. idem, WUNT 33 (Tübingen:
Mohr, 1984), 85–113.
75 On cognitive linguistics’ analogous “process turn” (from “text-as-product” to “discourse-
as-process”), see the classic by G. Brown and G. Yule, Discourse Analysis, Cambridge Textbooks
in Linguistics (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1983).
76 “From Work to Text,” in idem, The Rustle of Language, trans. R. Howard (New York: Hill
& Wang, 1986), 56–64, 57.
77 Barthes, “From Work to Text,” 57.
78 Of course, they could be – and have been – described in many other ways, as well (e. g.,
theological, political, etc.).
79 J. Rüsen recognizes this; see “Anmerkungen zum Thema Christologie und Narration,” in
Gegenwart des Absoluten: Philosophisch-theologische Diskurse zur Christologie, ed. K.‑M. Ko-
dalle (Gütersloh: Mohn, 1984), 90–96.
What Is a Genre? 93
pels are not primarily “a form of writing that relies on evidence,”80 but a narrative
mode of representation that claims to rely on evidence.81 As Barthes argued:
[F]rom the moment that language is involved … the fact can only be defined in a tauto-
logical fashion …. And so we arrive at the paradox which governs the entire question of the
distinctiveness of historical discourse. The fact can have only a linguistic existence, as a term
in a discourse, and yet it is exactly as if this existence were merely the “copy,” purely and
simply, of another existence situated in the extra-structural domain of the “real.”82
Put differently, narrative referentiality – the impression one gets that narratives
like the Gospels represent events that “really happened” – is the effect of rhetorical
devices employed to that end (l’effet de réel).83 Thinking of genre as a communi-
cative mode invites us to investigate how l’effet de réel works in the telling of a tale.
Consider temporality. Narratives that claim to be reliable accounts of the
past have a paradoxical relationship to time.84 On the one hand, as narratologist
Monika Fludernik points out, an “experience of something as history … can only
be characterized in contrast or opposition to our contemporary experience” –
that is, one can only narrate the past as such retrospectively.85 This temporal
alterity can be a boon to those who write about the past, since “Hindsight allows
historians to evaluate events in the light of later events and make out links
that are still invisible to the historical agents.”86 The crucifixion scenes in the
Gospels, for example, can only be narrated as a past event from a position of
non-contemporaneity. The otherness of the past – the distance from which the
evangelist creates or discerns causal links between events – is what enables a
narration of the crucifixion.
On the other hand, casting a narration as a reliable account of past events
requires a “configuration of the context which positions the … events as a
80 D. Pendas, “Testimony,” in Reading Primary Sources: The Interpretation of Texts from

Nineteenth- and Twentieth-Century History, ed. M. Dobson and B. Ziemann (London: Rout-
ledge, 2009), 226–42, 227.
81 C. Reinfandt poses the question: “How can it be that genuinely unstable systems of
signification acquire the power of reality principles nonetheless?” (“Reading Texts after the
Linguistic Turn,” in Dobson and Ziemann, Reading Primary Sources, 37–53, 47).
82 R. Barthes, “The Discourse of History,” trans. S. Bann, in Comparative Criticism: A Year-
book, Volume 3, ed. E. S. Schaffer (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1981), 3–20, 19,
emphasis added.
83 R. Barthes, “L’Effet de Réel,” Communications 11 (1968): 84–89. Relatedly, F. R. Anker
smit, The Reality Effect in the Writing of History: The Dynamics of Historiographical Topology
(Amsterdam: Noord-Hollandsche, 1989).
84 M. de Certeau popularized this notion in the 1970s. See his compilation of related articles
in L’ecriture de l’histoire, Bibliothèque du histoire (Paris: Gallimard, 1975).
85 M. Fludernik, “Experience, Experientiality and Historical Narrative: A View from Nar-
ratology,” in Erfahrung und Geschichte: Historische Sinnbildung im Pränarrativen, ed. T. Breyer
and D. Creutz, Narratologia 23 (Berlin: De Gruyter, 2010), 40–72, 44. See also F. R. Ankersmit,
Sublime Historical Experience (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 2005).
86 J. Grethlein, Experience and Teleology in Ancient Historiography: Futures Past from
Herodotus to Augustine (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2013), 3.
functional moment within that configuration.”87 Such a configuration effectively

merges past and present, creating one extended present in which relevance,
significance, and consequence seem stable across time. Elizabeth A. Clark
describes this effect as the work of ideology: “[I]deology naturalizes and uni-
versalizes its subjects, ignoring the ‘historical sedimentation’ [Gayatri Spivak’s
phrase] that situates and individualizes them; it implies that our society’s values
have no history, but are eternal and natural.”88 Studying genre as communicative
act therefore requires awareness of an inherent tension. While, as Amy J. Devitt
writes, “the historical and institutional situatedness of genres makes them es-
sentially ideological,” the ideology of a given text, according to Clark, “implies
that [its] society’s values have no history, but are eternal and natural.”89 We shall
return to this point momentarily.
Closely related to a narrative’s uses of temporality is its teleological purpose.
As Peter Brooks insists, “Plots are not simply organizing structures, they are also
intentional structures, goal-oriented and forward-moving.”90 When a narrative
is cast retrospectively, the coherence and importance of events derive from the
teleological thrust of the story; events are not random. In narrative, causal con-
nections are crucial. Historical narrative, writes Louis O. Mink, “does not demon-
strate the necessity of events but makes them intelligible by unfolding the story
which connects their significance.”91 The constructed end – the telos – toward
which the plot is progressing shapes what is narrated, and how it is narrated,
throughout. Discussing the historiographic narratives of Herodotus and Poly-
bius, Jonas Grethlein observes: “Inserting an event into a development, especially
making it a telos to which earlier history leads, helps render it important.”92
This is precisely how the Gospel narratives function as narrative. In different
ways, and with varying levels of emphasis, all four canonical Gospels portray
events that (1) happened in the past, but have ongoing, present significance, and
(2) culminate in a telos toward which their own discrete storyworlds (e. g., via
Jesus’s own repeated prophecies, intertextual allusions to Jewish Scriptures, etc.)
and larger unfurling earlier histories (especially in John, that of the entire cos-
mos) have been driving. The Gospel writers attribute chronological stability –
that is, continuity between past and (their) present – to the work of God in the
87 Fludernik, “Experience,” 46.
88 E. A. Clark, History, Theory, Text: Historians and the Linguistic Turn (Cambridge, MA:
Harvard University Press, 2004), 175, citing G. C. Spivak, “The Politics of Interpretation,” in
The Politics of Interpretation, ed. W. J. T. Mitchell (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1983),
347–66, 347.
89 A. J. Devitt, “Integrating Rhetorical and Literary Theories of Genre,” College English 62
(2000): 696–718, 701; Clark, History, Theory, Text, 175.
90 P. Brooks, Reading for the Plot: Design and Intention in Narrative (New York: Knopf,
1984), 12.
91 L. O. Mink, “History and Fiction as Modes of Comprehension,” New Literary History 1/3
(1970): 541–58, 545.
92 Grethlein, Experience and Teleology, 309.
What Is a Genre? 95
world; their background assumptions about the divine inevitably inflect their
narrative constructions of causality. As David P. Moessner insists, this particular
mode of storytelling was “well known to Jewish audiences through the narrative
histories of their scriptures and to non-Jewish auditors through the principle of
‘divine’ or ‘providential’ steering of people and events as represented through
Hellenistic historiography.”93 The Gospel genre, as communicative mode, thus
paradoxically presupposes a distinction between past and present, while simul-
taneously collapsing that very distinction in the service of larger theological/
ideological aims. The reception history of the Gospel stories throughout the past
two millenia obviously attests to the rhetorical success of these “generalizable”
narrational dynamics insofar as the Gospels have been perceived as accounts
with eternal theological import for every time and place.94
Before concluding, I want to address one last issue – namely, Gospel scholars’
persistent propensity to return again and again to generic classification as a de-
sirable end in and of itself. Why do we wish to classify genres in the first place?
What is the systematizing performance of classification doing for us? I suggest that
this preoccupation attests to what we might call – with an appreciative tip of
the hat to Michel Foucault – the “genre function.” In his seminal essay, “What
Is an Author?” Foucault begins by recognizing that “criticism and philosophy
took note of the disappearance – or death – of the author some time ago,” but
insists that the consequences of this authorial absence “have not been sufficiently
examined.”95 He goes on to argue that the author’s name does particular kinds of
authorizing work vis-à-vis a text and its readers:
The author’s name serves to characterize a certain mode of being of discourse: the fact
that the discourse has an author’s name … shows that this discourse is not ordinary every-
day speech that merely comes and goes, not something that is immediately consumable.
On the contrary, it is a speech that must be received in a certain mode and that, in a given
culture, must receive a certain status … the name seems always to be present, marking off
the edges of the text, revealing, or at least characterizing, its mode of being. The author’s
name manifests the appearance of a certain discursive set and indicates the status of this
discourse within a society and a culture.96
Foucault labels these dynamics the “author function.” I want to suggest that our
classifications of texts as specific genres (e. g., determining “what the Gospels
are”) fulfill a similar legitimating function. Replacing Foucault’s phrase “the
author’s name” with “the genre’s name” works just as well:
93 D. P. Moessner, “How Luke Writes,” in idem, Luke the Historian of Israel’s Legacy, Theo-
logian of Israel’s “Christ”: A New Reading of the “Gospel Acts” of Luke, BZNW 182 (Berlin: De
Gruyter, 2016), 13–38, 35.
94 Kraus (“Historiography and Biography,” 416) describes “the generalizable quality” in
ancient “narrative historia [which] enables both communication and didaxis.”
95 M. Foucault, “What Is an Author?,” in Textual Strategies: Perspectives in Post-Structuralist
Criticism, ed. J. V. Harari (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1979), 141–60, 143.
96 Foucault, “What Is an Author?,” 147.
[The genre’s name] is not simply an element in a discourse (capable of being either subject
or object, of being replaced by a pronoun, and the like); it performs a certain role with
regard to narrative discourse, assuring a classificatory function. Such a name permits one
to group together a certain number of texts, define them, differentiate them from and
contrast them to others. In addition, it establishes a relationship among the texts.97
To give but one example, the linear depictions of early Christian texts’ declining
historical reliability discussed above authorize not only the Gospel texts them-
selves, but also the underlying illusion of a recoverable, pure, “orthodox” version
of early Christian history. Moreover, classifying the Gospels as “biography” or
“history” establishes and validates their status as a particular kind of discourse –
a kind of discourse that the critic’s (academic, rational, Western) society values.
Foucault’s conclusion regarding authorial identification parallels my own con-
clusion regarding generic identification:
Perhaps it is time to study discourses not only in terms of their expressive value or formal
transformations, but according to their modes of existence. The modes of circulation,
valorization, attribution, and appropriation of discourses vary with each culture and are
modified within each. The manner in which they are articulated according to social rela-
tionships can be more readily understood, I believe, in the activity of the [genre]-function
and in its modifications, than in the themes or concepts that discourses set in motion.98
Genres function differently in different times and places; consequently, they

exist differently in different contextual realms.
In the end, I am not arguing for an abandonment of classification altogether.
Categorizing the socially-constructed type of a given message plays an important
role in the communicative process. However, if, as I contend, literary genres are
best conceived as standardized modes of communication that arise in response
to certain exigencies, then as researchers, we ought to do more than offer formu-
laic descriptions of what the Gospels “are” – as though genres have a freestand-
ing and fixed, eternal and natural “essence.”99 I shall close by again amending
Foucault. If scholars were to reconceptualize the Gospel genre in terms of a
particular communicative mode,
[w]e would no longer hear the questions that have been rehashed for so long: [e. g., “What
is a Gospel?”] … Instead, there would be other questions, like these: “What are the modes
of existence of this [genre]? Where has it been used, how can it circulate, and who can ap-
propriate it …?” … And behind all these questions, we would hear hardly anything but the
stirring of an indifference: “What difference does it make [what genre this Gospel ‘is’]?”100
97 Foucault, “What Is an Author?,” 147.

98 Foucault, “What Is an Author?,” 158, emphasis added.
99 See, for example, D. P. Moessner’s instructive response to C. H. Talbert, “And Once Again,
What Sort of ‘Essence?’ A Response to Charles Talbert,” Semeia 43 (1988): 75–84, replying to
Talbert, “Once Again: Gospel Genre,” ibid., 53–74.
100 Foucault, “What is an Author?,” 160.
A Critique of Richard Burridge’s
Genre Theory
From a One-Dimensional to a Multi-Dimensional
Approach to Gospel Genre1
Elizabeth E. Shively
A quiet revolution has taken place in the scholarly understanding of the

Gospel genre since the publication of Richard Burridge’s What Are the
Gospels? in 1992, reversing the earlier consensus that the canonical Gos-
pels should not be considered biographies. Burridge’s research has been
widely accepted and has produced a new consensus, that the Gospels are
a species of ancient biography (βίος). Steve Walton2
It is difficult to overstate Burridge’s role in this coup. Under the influence of form
criticism, a consensus had taken shape that “the form of the gospels is unique
and that Mark had no literary models at all.”3 Yet a resistance began to grow.
Redaction criticism challenged form criticism’s denial of authorial intention.
Then literary criticism challenged historical criticism’s denial of the gospels’
narrative coherence and literary artistry. As a result, a number of scholars began
to read the Gospel of Mark alongside contemporaneous literature and suggested
that it belonged to any of a number of genres including aretology,4 apocalypse,5
Greco-Roman biography,6 historical monograph,7 and Hellenistic biographical
1 This article is the expansion of a paper I delivered at the 2018 SBL Annual Meeting in
Denver on a review panel of R. A. Burridge, What Are the Gospels? A Comparison with Graeco-
Roman Biography, 3rd ed. (Waco, TX: Baylor University Press, 2018). The research was made
possible by a Carnegie Trust Research Incentive Grant.
2 “What Are the Gospels? Richard Burridge’s Impact on Scholarly Understanding of the
Genre of the Gospels,” CurBR 14/1 (2015): 81–93, 81.
3 G. N. Stanton, The Gospels and Jesus (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1989), 15. Stanton
reversed this view, however, with the publication of Burridge’s book.
4 M. Hadas and M. Smith, Heroes and Gods: Spiritual Biographies in Antiquity, Religious
Perspectives 13 (New York: Harper & Row; London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1965);
M. Smith, “Prolegomena to a Discussion of Aretalogies, Divine Men, the Gospels and Jesus,”
JBL 90 (1971): 174–99.
5 H. C. Kee, Community of the New Age: Studies in Mark’s Gospel (Philadelphia: Westmin-
ster, 1977).
6 E. g., C. H. Talbert, What Is a Gospel? The Genre of the Canonical Gospels (Philadelphia:
Fortress, 1977); repr. (London: SPCK, 1978); P. L. Shuler, A Genre for the Gospels: The Bio-
98 Elizabeth E. Shively
novel.8 Yet none of these particular proposals turned the tide. Burridge brought
the tactical stroke that overthrew the reigning paradigm. He succeeded in
persuading a majority of scholars that gospel genre is neither ex nihilo nor sui
generis; that the gospels were not directed to specific communities but to all
Christians; and that they are not about particular situations but about Jesus. In a
review of the second edition of What Are the Gospels?, Charles Talbert notes that
the German scholar Dirk Frickenschmidt investigated and confirmed Burridge’s
results,9 and on this basis Talbert concludes that “the thesis of the biographical
genre for the gospels has seemingly won the day.”10 His point is that if British and
German scholarship can agree on a matter of biblical interpretation then it must
be settled! Indeed, gospel commentaries and publications attending to gospel
genre have become dominated by discussions that assume Burridge’s model and
that draw out implications for the interpretation of the texts.11 Even handbooks
in classics list the gospels as examples of ancient biography, citing Burridge’s
book.12 What Are the Gospels? is now in its third edition, and Burridge is so con-
fident of its lasting impact that he has left it unrevised.13
graphical Character of Matthew (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1982); D. E. Aune, The New Testament
in Its Literary Environment, LEC 8 (Philadelphia: Westminster, 1987); repr. (Cambridge: James
Clarke, 1988), 46–76.
7 A. Yarbro Collins, Mark: A Commentary, ed. H. W. Attridge, Hermeneia (Minneapolis:
Fortress, 2007). Specifically, Yarbro Collins calls Mark an “eschatological historical monograph.”
8 M. A. Tolbert, Sowing the Gospel: Mark’s World in Literary-Historical Perspective (Phila-
delphia: Fortress, 1989).
9 D. Frickenschmidt, Evangelium als Biographie: Die vier Evangelien im Rahmen antiker
Erzählkunst, TANZ 22 (Tübingen: Francke, 1997).
10 C. H. Talbert, review of Jesus and Gospel, by G. N. Stanton, What Are the Gospels?, by R. A.
Burridge, Rethinking the Gospel Sources, by D. Burkett, and The Date of Mark’s Gospels, by J. G.
Crossley, PRSt 33 (2006): 524–27, 526.
11 Monographs that develop the idea that the Gospels are Greco-Roman biography include
C. Bryan, A Preface to Mark: Notes on the Gospel in Its Literary and Cultural Settings (New York:
Oxford University Press, 1993), 32–63; E. W. Klink III, The Sheep of the Fold: The Audience and
Origin of the Gospel of John, SNTSMS 141 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2007);
S. A. Adams, The Genre of Acts and Collected Biography, SNTSMS 156 (Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press, 2013); C. E. W. Vine, The Audience of Matthew: An Appraisal of the Local
Audience Thesis, LNTS 496 (London: Bloomsbury T&T Clark, 2014); J. M. Smith, Why Βίος?
On the Relationship between Gospel Genre and Implied Audiences, LNTS 518 (London: Blooms-
bury T&T Clark, 2015); C. S. Keener and E. T. Wright, eds., Biographies and Jesus: What Does It
Mean for the Gospels to Be Biographies? (Lexington, KY: Emeth Press, 2016); M. R. Licona, Why
Are There Differences in the Gospels? What We Can Learn from Ancient Biography (New York:
Oxford University Press, 2017); H. K. Bond, The First Biography of Jesus: Genre and Meaning in
Mark’s Gospel (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 2020); C. S. Keener, Christobiography: Memory,
History, and the Reliability of the Gospels (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 2019).
12 For instance, T. Hägg and P. Rousseau, eds., Greek Biography and Panegyric in Late
Antiquity, Transformation of the Classical Heritage (Berkeley, CA: University of California
Press, 2000).
13 Burridge added a lengthy introductory chapter discussing the impact of his work on
scholarship in What Are the Gospels?, I.1–I.112.
A Critique of Richard Burridge’s Genre Theory 99
Without question, Burridge made a crucial advance to gospel genre studies. He

rightly rejected an abstract and rigid approach to genre. Instead, through a flexible
understanding of genre and analogical approach to its study, he performed an
inductive analysis of actual texts in their historical and literary contexts. He
identified a set of variable genre categories based on the formal features and
content of a corpus of texts. Then, he compared the gospels against this taxonomy
of categories to argue that they belong to the Greco-Roman biography genre.
Nevertheless, significant problems with his approach undermine his conclusions.
Indeed, one of the most serious lacunas in gospel genre studies is the failure to
perform a critical analysis of Burridge’s genre theory. The purpose of this essay is
to offer such an analysis and then suggest a way forward for gospel genre studies.
A. A Summary and Critique of Burridge’s

Genre Theory
Burridge bases his genre theory and analytical method on a combination of

structuralism and family resemblance theory, by which he rightly rejects a neo-
classical approach in favor of a more flexible model.14 He understands “family
resemblance” as a variable pattern of generic features that characterizes a genre,
based on external and internal literary characteristics. Accordingly, Burridge de-
fines genre as “a group of literary works sharing certain ‘family resemblances’ …
functioning as a set of expectations to guide interpretation.”15 In what follows,
I work from the center outward, beginning with Burridge’s method of analysis
and moving towards the genre theory on which it is based.
B. Burridge’s Method of Analysis:

A Family Resemblance Model
Burridge identifies ten texts of the genre Greco-Roman biography that represent
its movement from origin, to modification, to reinterpretation and redirection.
He examines eighteen generic features – or potential family resemblances – of
these ten examples. The purpose of the analysis is to “identify these ‘generic
features’ as a list against which we can compare the gospels and Graeco-Roman
bioi, to see whether they exhibit the same pattern and family resemblance.”16
In other words, for Burridge, the list of eighteen variable generic features effec-
14 Burridge relies on the scholarship of A. Fowler, E. D. Hirsh, and J. Culler.

15 Burridge, What Are the Gospels?, 40–41. Similarly, genre “functions by providing a set of
expectations as a sort of contract between author and reader” (105).
tively functions as a taxonomy for deciding whether works belong to the genre
Greco-Roman biography.17 Once he has assembled his list of features, Burridge
argues that in order to belong to the Greco-Roman biography family, “a work
must show at least as sufficient of the common generic features as these works do,
within the limits of diversity.”18 Then, he compares the gospels to the list and
concludes that they “belong within the overall genre of βίοι.”19 Burridge does
not indicate what he means by “a sufficient number,” though elsewhere he states
that a work must exhibit “at least as many of the features as other examples do.”20
Based on Burridge’s model, it thus seems rather important to know how many
of the eighteen features each of the works exhibits, and then how many each
gospel exhibits. But Burridge never says; in fact, he never compares all of the
Greco-Roman works or the gospels to all of the eighteen features in the generic
repertoire in a thoroughgoing way.
Moreover, it is difficult to know how anyone in the ancient world would
recognize the Greco-Roman biography genre or a text in that genre category at
all according to Burridge’s model. This is because his list is populated by fuzzy
features that make it too imprecise to function as a standard. For example, one
of the generic features on Burridge’s list is “purpose.” Upon analysing the “pur-
pose” of the ten biographical works, Burridge concludes that, “these βίοι dis-
play many possible purposes … but several intentions may be combined in one
particular work.”21 What, then, is the genre-specific purpose of Greco-Roman
biography? It appears to be “mixed” or “varied.” Any meaningful comparison
for genre classification, however, requires a more specific description. When
Burridge subsequently compares the gospels to this list, he similarly notes that
they have a variety of purposes and on this basis decides that the “congruence
of aims between the synoptic gospels and βίοι is another indication of a shared
genre.”22 Burridge applies the same fuzziness and imprecision to a number of
other features and to determine that there is a “range,” “variety,” and “diversity,”
for example:
– Allocation of space: “the author may order and allocate the interior structure
of a βίος as he wishes, with material in a chronological sequence, or mixed up
with topical analysis.”23

18 Burridge, What Are the Gospels?, 184, emphasis added.
19 Burridge, What Are the Gospels?, 212: “Thus, there is a high degree of correlation be-
tween the generic features of Graeco-Roman βίοι …. This is surely a sufficient number of shared
features for the genre of the synoptic gospels to be clear: while they may well form their own
subgenre because of their shared content, the synoptic gospels belong within the overall genre
of βίοι.”
20 Burridge, What Are the Gospels?, 211, emphasis added; see also 184.
– Style: “Thus βίος literature is not limited to any one formal or high-brow style
and level”;24 and, “we conclude that while βίοι could be written in a high
literary style, they can have a large element of the popular also.”25
– Atmosphere: “we may conclude that although the atmosphere of βίοι … tends
to be mostly serious and respectful, even encomiastic in some, it can be much
lighter in others.”26
– Occasion: “these examples contain evidence of a social setting within the
upper or educated classes, but with hints that βίοι can have a variety of set-
tings and occasions further down the social scale.”27
Burridge concludes that because the gospels have a similar range, variety, and
diversity with regard to these features, they too must belong to the genre Greco-
Roman biography. Surely this is a case in which, using the words of John Swales,
“a family resemblance theory can make anything resemble anything.”28
The family resemblance model is indeed an advance over a neo-classical
genre theory that views genres in terms of fixed categories, because it allows
for the inclusion of members within a type (or a family) without requiring that
every characteristic feature be present, important, or similarly represented in
every case.29 Family resemblance theory is useful “whenever a feature proves to
be less than universally distributed,”30 to prevent us from discounting certain
unrepresentative texts from a genre or “family” because of their unusual textual
features. In other words, family resemblance theory helps us to account for the
relationships of individual works to a genre, not to establish the genre category
itself. This makes Burridge’s application of family resemblance theory problem-
atic.
A careful reading of Alistair Fowler’s classic work, Kinds of Literature,
reveals the extent of the problem. Fowler understands that Wittgenstein used
the family metaphor to explain the network of similarities that exists among
individual members, rather than to explain an overall pattern of genre-specific
features.31 The unfiltered application of Wittgenstein’s concept to genre theory

27 Burridge, What Are the Gospels?, 145; see also 180.
28 J. M. Swales, Genre Analysis: English in Academic and Research Settings, Cambridge Ap-
plied Linguistics Series (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1990), 51.
29 For Burridge, like Fowler, “the basis of resemblance lies in literary tradition … a sequence
of influence and imitation and inherited codes connecting works in the genre” (A. Fowler,
Kinds of Literature: An Introduction to the Theory of Genres and Modes [Oxford: Clarendon,
1982], 42–43).
31 Wittgenstein’s point was that different kinds of language usage (for which he employed
the metaphor of ‘games’) have nothing in common as a set, but only share a series of similarities
and relationships.
would mean, according to Fowler, that “(r)epresentatives of a genre may then

be regarded as making up a family whose septs and individual members are
related in various ways, without having any single features shared in common
by all.” Thus, while Fowler declares (as Burridge quotes) that, “family resem-
blance theory holds out the best hope to the genre critic,” Fowler also states that
“the Wittgensteinian theory needs some modification …. How is the theory to
distinguish between patience games and fortunetelling? Or fiction and lying?”32
In other words, Fowler deems Wittgenstein’s theory “too loose to reflect genre
membership” in its pure form, and so modifies it in two ways.
First, Fowler provides stability to the family resemblance model by extending
the family metaphor to a biological one:33 he shows how historical genres are re-
lated through a common ancestry and their exhibition of characteristic features
that manifest themselves throughout the literary tradition. Burridge does this
sort of work by giving an account of the development of Greco-Roman biogra-
phy from ca. 375 BCE through ca. 250 CE, from Isocrates to Philostratus. But he
does not demonstrate how his diachronic approach facilitates the recognition
of exemplars with which those who produced and received new works (like
the gospels) may have compared them; and he does not delineate the unique
generic repertoire that might define the genre.34 As a result, Burridge fails effec-
tively to establish “a control group … to show which features may be regarded as
significantly typical of this literature.”35
This leads to Fowler’s second modification of Wittgenstein’s theory. He groups
fifteen generic features most common to historical literary genres into a generic
repertoire that reflects “the whole range of potential points of resemblance that
a genre may exhibit.”36 In other words, the generic repertoire represents typical
characteristics of the family “literary genre.” The taxonomy provides a means
of recognizing and analyzing diverse historical genres like biography, poetry,
and drama as members of the “literary genre” family, each of which exhibits
features of the generic repertoire to varying degrees.37 Burridge applies this level
of analysis to Greco-Roman biography by creating a comprehensive list against
which he analyzes the works he has chosen.38 The problem is that he treats the
33 Fowler, Kinds of Literature, 42–53. Wittgenstein’s family resemblance idea does not,
in fact, include a biological approach; rather, it is about the loose relations between family
members. In addition to Fowler, D. Fishelov extends the family metaphor to a biological one in
“Genre Theory and Family Resemblance – Revisited,” Poetics 20 (1991): 123–38.
34 Fowler, Kinds of Literature, 58, 59.
35 T. Hägg, The Art of Biography in Antiquity (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press,
2012), 154.
36 Fowler, Kinds of Literature, 55, emphasis added.
37 According to family resemblance theory, if biography, for example, is found to have
fewer points of resemblance to the generic repertoire than poetry, then this does not disqualify
biography from the family “literary genre.”
generic repertoire of “literary genre” in all its features as a comprehensive generic

repertoire of “Greco-Roman biography.”
By contrast, Fowler’s generic repertoire of “literary genre” provides a starting
point for identifying historical genres and their distinctive characteristics. After
Fowler introduces the generic repertoire, he states that “[e]very genre has a unique
repertoire, from which its representatives select characteristics.”39 This means
that the unique generic repertoire of Greco-Roman biography is comprised not
of fuzzy features, but of the distinctive, indispensable features of that genre, or
those features that cling to it – like aliens, time travel, and wacky science cling
to the generic repertoire of science fiction. Fowler also states that if a particular
feature occurs in many genres, then we should develop a more stratified level of
that feature in order to identify what may be linked to a particular genre.40 What
Burridge fails to do is give a clear indication of the unique generic repertoire of
Greco-Roman biography. What he needs is an approach to genre that allows
him to identify exemplars and their prototypical features in order to establish a
standard by which to compare individual texts.
This need may be met by a cognitive approach that view genres as mental
schemata, which are “skeletal information structures stored in memory, with a
number of slots to be filled,” like actions, agents, and themes.41 Schemata mani-
fest prototype structures with best examples at the center, and inferior and then
peripheral examples fanning out radially from there.42 Based on prototypical ex-
amples, we form mental models – what George Lakoff calls “idealized cognitive
models” (ICMs) – that help structure our thought.43 In sum, we form mental
models as we learn categories from prototypical examples we remember, and
then we evaluate new things we encounter to determine the extent to which they
are representative of a category by comparing them to our mental models. For
instance, prototype theory says that if I were to ask you to think of a “bird,” and
39 Fowler, Kinds of Literature, 55, emphasis added.

40 Fowler, Kinds of Literature, 61; see also 73.
41 R. Schneider and M. Hartner, “The Cognitive Theory of Literary Genres Revisited: Cues
from Construction Grammar and Conceptual Integration,” in Linguistics and Literary Studies:
Interfaces, Encounters, Transfers / Linguistik und Literaturwissenschaft: Begegnungen, Inter-
ferenzen und Kooperation, ed. M. Fludernik and D. Jacob, Linguae et Litterae 31 (Berlin: De
Gruyter, 2014), 385–403, 387. See also R. L. Colie, The Resources of Kind: Genre-Theory in the
Renaissance, ed. B. K. Lewalski (Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 1973); D. Chand
ler, “An Introduction to Genre Theory,” http://visual-memory.co.uk/daniel/ Documents/
intgenre/chandler_genre_theory.pdf (1997); P. Stockwell, Cognitive Poetics: An Introduction
(London: Routledge, 2002), 31.
42 Stockwell, Cognitive Poetics, 28.
43 See Lakoff ’s discussion of the development of cognitive models in Women, Fire, and
Dangerous Things: What Categories Reveal about the Mind (Chicago: University of Chicago
Press, 1987), 1–154. See also the development of prototype theory and ICMs in M. Sinding,
“After Definitions: Genre, Categories, and Cognitive Science,” Genre 35 (2002): 181–220,
184–85, 190–91; Chandler, “Introduction to Genre Theory.”
if you are a Westerner, you will likely picture something like a robin or a sparrow
in your mind’s eye. A prototypical example such as this forms the basis of ICMs,
which are less particular than the prototype. If you have ever heard a robin or a
sparrow sing, you may also imagine that song. You may even imagine a certain
setting based on your experience (a nest, a branch, the sky, a backyard feeder).
Then, you will compare, evaluate and recognize other instances of “bird” (like
parrot, chicken, eagle) as extensions of this ICM. Family resemblance theory will
also allow the recognition of atypical specimens as birds. For instance, while
the emu and penguin do not fly, they resemble the exemplars in that they have
feathers and lay eggs. The benefit of understanding genre categories according
to prototypical examples is that it helps us to recognize texts in relation to and
as extensions of central or “best” examples of genres and to refrain from disqual-
ifying outlying texts that may not exhibit every feature.
C. Burridge’s Genre Theory: A Literary Exercise
The architecture of Burridge’s genre theory has multiple levels of textual

meaning, function, and history. First, Burridge delineates three levels of generic
meaning, moving from a broad heuristic level, to an intrinsic level in the process
of reading, to the unique meaning of a text in its specific words. Thus, for Bur-
ridge, the process of refining the meaning of genre determines the particular
meaning of texts.44 Second, Burridge delineates three levels of generic function:
mode, genre, and subgenre. Genre is a group of literary works that share form
and content (e. g., “biography”); a mode is the operation of a genre’s motifs and
styles without its form and content (“apocalyptic biography”); and a subgenre is
a subdivision of a genre according to subject matter or motif.45 Burridge applies
this model to an analysis of the relationship between Greco-Roman biography
and a number of other neighboring genres by placing biography at the center
and explaining the borrowing of or sharing from other genres in terms of
“mode.”46 Third, he identifies three historical levels: the origin of the genre, its
modification, and then its reinterpretation and redirection.47
As the preceding summary suggests, Burridge sets the gospels in their his-
torical context but essentially performs a literary exercise. As a result – and
as suggested above – he gives an insufficient account of how and why people
recognize, categorize, and use texts in their social contexts. Yet attention to the
roles of producers and receivers of texts is crucial to genre study because, from a
rhetorical standpoint, people draw on what they know and experience in social
contexts to use and explain genres; and from a cognitive standpoint, people
make sense of genres by activating and (re)interpreting a network of mental
structures they have stored in the mind.48 What is needed, therefore, is a genre
theory than can account for how people process genres as they progress through
a text; how people conceptualize ways that different genres and modes interact
with and affect each other; and how people acquire the cognitive equipment to
discern genre cues at all.49 Thus, the crucial starting point for genre study is the
analysis of the linguistic, cultural, and social contexts that informed the earliest
reception and use of the gospels.50 In addition, genre study requires an analysis
of the oral-textual media culture, the rhetorical-situational context that gave rise
to the gospels, and various existing genres available for accomplishing the socio-
rhetorical task – not only Greco-Roman biography, but also, for example, He-
brew historical narrative, apocalypse, Greek drama, and so on. While Burridge
anticipates rhetorical and cognitive developments in his first edition,51 he never
extends them in the second or third editions even though the theory is available.
This I feel is a pity – it is a missed opportunity to take forward what has been an
immensely influential shift in the focus of gospel genre.
Fundamentally, I would argue that Burridge’s genre theory needs to be up-
dated in light of advances in literary genre theory, in which scholars have been
incorporating ground breaking insights from rhetorical52 and cognitive53 genre
theories for twenty years.
48 Sinding comments (“After Definitions,” 185 n. 7): “there is no question of choosing

between a historical and a cognitive approach to categories. Cognition always operates in spe-
cific historical settings, and cognitive structure and local setting must work together for real
thought to occur.”
49 Schneider and Hartner, “Cognitive Theory,” 389.
50 Several studies have drawn attention to the literary context of the gospels’ production
and reception, which requires significant attention to the socio-rhetorical context and function:
D. Dormeyer, Evangelium als literarische und theologische Gattung, EdF 263 (Darmstadt: Wis-
senschaftliche Buchgesellschaft, 1989), 7–25; E.‑M. Becker, The Birth of Christian History:
Memory and Time From Mark to Luke-Acts, AYBRL (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press,
2018); M. D. C. Larsen, Gospels before the Book (New York: Oxford University Press, 2018).
51 For example, his discussion of generic mixture maps the flexible and overlapping
boundaries between biography and neighboring genres in such a way that anticipates prototype
theory; but in his model he relates genres to genres rather than actual works to genres. See
Burridge, What Are the Gospels?, 62–64.
52 C. R. Miller pioneered a new rhetorical approach to genre in “Genre as Social Action,”
Quarterly Journal of Speech 70 (1984): 151–67. See also K. M. Jamieson, “Antecedent Genre
as Rhetorical Constraint,” Quarterly Journal of Speech 61 (1975): 406–15; M. A. K. Halliday,
Language as a Social Semiotic: The Social Interpretation of Language and Meaning (Baltimore,
MD: University Park; London: Edward Arnold, 1978); M. A. K. Halliday and R. Hasan, Lan-
guage, Context, and Text: Aspects of Language in a Social-Semiotic Perspective, 2nd ed. (Oxford:
Oxford University Press, 1989). Those who have integrated the insights of New Rhetoric with
literary approaches include A. J. Devitt, “Generalizing about Genre: New Conceptions of an
Old Concept,” College Composition and Communication 44 (1993): 573–86; eadem, “Genre
as a Language Standard,” in Genre and Writing: Issues, Arguments, Alternatives, ed. W. Bishop
Literary theorist John Frow, for instance, integrates developments from New
Rhetoric and cognitive linguistics in his book, Genre.54 As a result, Frow presents
genres not only as literary forms or “contracts” of expectations between writers
and readers, but also as typified actions in social contexts that perform certain
kinds of thinking about the world. Frow offers an “almost … definition” of genre,
which is that genre represents “a relationship between the textual structures and
the situations that occasion them.” This definition reflects Frow’s concern not
only with the formal properties of discourse but also with its social-rhetorical
situation and pragmatic function. Moreover, this approach crucially shifts the
focus of genre study from textual properties alone to the cognitions and situations
of those who produce and receive them.
Not only literary theorists, but scholars in biblical studies have also been in-
tegrating literary, rhetorical and cognitive theories of genre for a decade. Carol
Newsom pointed the way in an important 2007 article, in which she stated that
cognitive theory is “one of the most promising recent developments in exploring
and H. Ostrom (Portsmouth, NH: Boynton/Cook-Heinemann, 1997), 45–55; A. J. Devitt,

“Integrating Rhetorical and Literary Theories of Genre,” College English 62 (2000): 696–718;
eadem, Writing Genres (Carbondale, IL: Southern Illinois University Press, 2004); Swales,
Genre Analysis.
53 I expanded on Burridge’s work in a recent article in which I offer an interpretation of
Mark’s ending in terms of its participation in Greco-Roman biography and in light of cog-
nitive models. I have learned a lot since then, however, and now depart from Burridge’s key
conclusions. The key argument and conclusions of my article, however, stand because I view
Mark as a genre-network that includes Greco-Roman biography. See E. E. Shively, “Recognizing
Penguins: Audience Expectation, Cognitive Genre Theory, and the Ending of Mark’s Gospel,”
CBQ 80 (2018): 273–92.
54 Frow first proposes integrating New Rhetoric and cognitive theories in “‘Reproducibles,
Rubrics, and Everything You Need’: Genre Theory Today,” PMLA 122/5 (2007): 1626–34. Iron-
ically, Burridge argues that his genre theory must be current because its key concepts appear in
John Frow’s book Genre. But he overlooks the insights that Frow incorporates from non-literary
genre theory.
55 A “cognitive turn” has drawn attention to the cognitive processes by which human
beings make meaning. Pioneers include E. Rosch, G. Lakoff, G. Fauconnier, and M. B. Turner.
See E. Rosch, “Cognitive Representations of Semantic Categories,” Journal of Experimental
Psychology 104/3 (1975): 192–233; eadem, “Principles of Categorization,” in Cognition and
Categorization, ed. eadem and B. B. Lloyd (Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum, 1978), 27–48;
Lakoff, Women, Fire and Dangerous Things. Those who have integrated cognitive sciences
with a literary approach to genre include Fishelov, “Genre Theory”; idem, “Studying Literary
Genres: The Empirical Angle,” in Empirical Approaches to Literature: Proceedings of the Fourth
Biannual Conference of the International Society for the Empirical Study of Literature, IGEL,
Budapest, August 1994, ed. G. Rusch, Lumis-Publications Special Edition 6 (Siegen: Siegen Uni-
versity Press, 1995), 84–88; D. Fishelov, “The Structure of Generic Categories: Some Cognitive
Aspects,” Journal of Literary Semantics 24 (1995): 117–26; R. Viehoff, “Literary Genres as Cog-
nitive Schemata,” in Rusch, Empirical Approaches to Literature, 72–76; D. Herman, Story Logic:
Problems and Possibilities of Narrative (Lincoln, NE: University of Nebraska Press, 2002); idem,
“I Don’t Know What Sort of a Genre This Is,” PN Review 200 (2011): 19–23; Swales, Genre
Analysis; Sinding, “After Definitions”; J. Frow, Genre, New Critical Idiom (London: Routledge,
2005); 2nd ed. (2015).
how people … recognize and engage genres.”56 A number of biblical scholars,

mostly studying Jewish literature, have followed her lead to examine pesher, re-
written scripture, apocalyptic, and wisdom literature.57 Yet Gospel genre research
lags behind, I believe, under the shadow of Burridge’s work.57
One exception is a recent essay by David Aune, who employs insights from
cognitive sciences and New Rhetoric for the study of the genres of Mark and
Matthew.58 Aune critiques the persistent neo-classical tendency to fit Mark into
one genre only.59 He argues that Mark is a complex “host genre” that is “recycled
from elements of several [simple] genres.”60 According to Aune, Mark employs
a “macro genre” to “shap[e] his story of Jesus from the many sources available
to him.”61 He identifies this “macro genre” as a “parody of biography.” This is
based on Aune’s view that Mark shares formal features of biography but aims
to upend the social ethics and virtues that Greco-Roman biography seeks to
exemplify. Then, Aune argues, Matthew imitates and transforms Mark in a new
social context by using Greco-Roman biography as a more extensive model and
by incorporating Q material. In spite of Aune’s innovation, his analysis is prob-
lematic. His discussion of generic mixture and change is muddled because he
uncritically combines historical genres (primary genres) with oral and literary
forms (secondary genres) and sources in his discussion of Mark’s and Matthew’s
generic models. As a result, his argument against the tendency to fit these gospels
into one and only one genre lacks precision. In the end, Aune becomes the sub-
ject of his own critique by identifying Mark as the one genre “biography,” which
functions as a parody.
Nevertheless, Aune signals a crucial way forward for gospel genre research by
engaging with rhetorical and cognitive genre theories to explain generic mixture
and change in Mark and Matthew. Foundational for this work is cognitive
56 C. A. Newsom, “Spying Out the Land: A Report from Genology,” in Bakhtin and Genre
Theory in Biblical Studies, ed. R. Boer, SemeiaSt 63 (Atlanta: SBL, 2007), 19–30, 21.
57 B. G. Wright III, “Joining the Club: A Suggestion about Genre in Early Jewish Texts,”
DSD 17 (2010): 289–314; R. Williamson, Jr., “Pesher: A Cognitive Model of the Genre,” DSD
17 (2010): 336–60; J. J. Collins, “The Genre Apocalypse Reconsidered,” ZAC 20 (2016): 21–40;
idem, Apocalypse, Prophecy, and Pseudepigraphy: On Jewish Apocalyptic Literature (Grand
Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 2015), 89–93; M. M. Zahn integrates literary, cognitive and rhetorical
genre theories for the rewritten scripture in “Genre and Rewritten Scripture: A Reassessment,”
JBL 131 (2012): 271–88.
58 Burridge briefly comments on Aune’s work in the new introduction of his book, but his
key observation is only that “Aune’s conclusion still states that ‘the most convincing generic
identification of Mark has been its association with Gra[eco]-Roman biography, a view carefully
argued by Richard Burridge’” (What Are the Gospels?, I.24).
59 D. E. Aune, “Genre Theory and Genre-Function of Mark and Matthew,” in Mark and
Matthew, vol. 1: Comparative Readings: Understanding the Earliest Gospels in Their First Cen-
tury Settings, ed. E.‑M. Becker and A. Runesson, WUNT 271 (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2011),
145–76, 146.
60 Aune, “Genre Theory and Genre-Function,” 165.
science’s discovery that we categorize things like texts in light of prototypical ex-
amples we remember from our knowledge and experience in our environment;
and from New Rhetoric’s rediscovery that we use particular genres for shared
communication to get things done in social contexts. For example, early Chris-
tians would have instinctively recognized and categorized texts by comparing
and contrasting them to prototypical examples of various genres learned from
their use and function within a discourse community.62 Two implications follow.
First, the study of gospel genre requires attention not only to textual features,
but also to how and why producers and users recognize, categorize, and employ
texts in changing socio-rhetorical contexts. Second, an investigation of generic
models for the gospels cannot be limited to a comparison with one type only.
In light of these implications, the future of gospel genre studies is best served
through the integration of a rhetorical dimension (genre as typified action),
a cognitive dimension (genre as schemata/mental structure), and a literary
dimension (genre as formal and thematic structure).63 This integration may
facilitate a thick description of a genre’s prototypical features. The resulting
multidimensional analysis of genre may then generate an expanded generic
repertoire that accounts not only for (1) the formal/thematic structure of texts,
but also for (2) socio-rhetorical action, that is, how and why users deploy genre
to achieve a purpose on an occasion; and (3) the mental processes by which
people categorize texts. John Swales explains the relationship of these three (dis-
course, purpose/occasion, mental schemata):
A genre comprises a class of communicative events, the members of which share some set
of communicative purposes. … [This set of purposes] shapes the schematic structure of
the discourse and influences and constrains choice of content and style …. In addition to
purpose, exemplars of a genre exhibit various patterns of similarity in terms of structure,
style, content and intended audience. If all high probability expectations are realized, the
exemplar will be viewed as prototypical by the parent discourse community.64
In other words, communicative purpose generates genre choice, which deter-

mines rhetorical roles and elements of discourse. Stated in the reverse, the dis-
course elements of a text accomplish its rhetorical roles, which accomplishes its
purpose.

63 For a multidimensional approach to genre see Frow, Genre; G. Parodi, “Academic and
Professional Genre Variation across Four Disciplines: Exploring the PUCV – 2006 Corpus of
Written Spanish,” Lingnagem em (Dis)curso 10 (2010): 535–67; G. Steen, “Genre between the
Humanities and the Sciences,” in Bi-Directionality in the Cognitive Sciences: Avenues, Challenges,
and Limitations, ed. M. Callies, W. R. Keller, and A. Lohöfer (Amsterdam: John Benjamins,
2011), 21–42; M. Sinding, “A Triple-Frame Model of Genre,” in Genre in Language, Discourse
and Cognition, ed. N. Stukker, W. Spooren, and G. Steen, Aspects of Cognitive Linguistics 33
(Berlin: De Gruyter, 2016), 305–30; T. A. van Dijk, “Discourse, Context, and Cognition,” Dis-
course Studies 8 (2006): 159–77.
64 Swales, Genre Analysis, 58, quoted in Sinding, “After Definitions,” 197 n. 25.
An ancient audience’s mental model of Greco-Roman biography would have

been built upon prior knowledge and experience of its communicative purpose,
rhetorical situation, and discourse features.65 An audience would have evaluated
new texts like the gospels in relationship to their complex mental model of the
Greco-Roman biography genre. But the situation is more complicated than this,
because Greco-Roman biography was not the only available genre to an ancient
audience. Other contemporaneous genres and their prototypical examples
would also have informed the evaluation of new texts, such as Hebrew historical
narrative, apocalypse, Greek drama. Ancient audiences would have made judg-
ments about new texts based on comparisons and contrasts to a variety of things
they knew in their social contexts.
Yet the situation is even further complicated because an ancient audience
would have processed a gospel like Mark not as a gestalt, but on different generic
levels at the same time.66 The opening of Mark’s Gospel provides an example.
Mark introduces his subject, Jesus, in the first line (1:1). Then he inscribes Jesus’s
arrival from Nazareth into the history of God’s activity by presenting the good
news as the fulfillment of Israel’s prophetic hope, articulated by Isaiah and an-
nounced by John the Baptist. Mark builds on Isaiah’s presentation of God as the
Strong One of Jacob who overcomes Babylon’s strong men who oppress God’s
people (Isa 49:26); but now the Spirit-filled Jesus is the stronger one who over-
comes the strong man, Satan, who oppresses humanity (cf. 3:22–30). Mark thus
fuses biographical, historical, prophetic, and apocalyptic structures, settings and
themes to create a particular sort of world. Mark’s prologue exhibits a high level
of generic combination and may, in fact, be called multi-generic. An audience
begins immediately to activate and recruit elements from a number of mental
schemata in order to process “genre chunks” as they integrate information to
make sense of the narrative.67 This sort of model begins to account for how au-
diences process generic modes and generic combination.68
Conceptual blending theory69 provides an additional heuristic model for
how audiences continue to process generic modes and generic combination. In
65 M. Sinding presents these three dimensions as interlocking frames in “Triple-Frame.”

66 W. Hallett, “Gattungen als kognitive Schemata: Die multigenerische Interpretation lit-
erarischer Texte,” in Gattungstheorie und Gattungsgeschichte, ed. M. Gymnich, B. Neumann,
and A. Nünning (Trier: Wissenschaftlicher Verlag Trier, 2007), 53–71, 62.
67 Schneider and Hartner, “Cognitive Theory,” 395–96.
68 I agree with Sinding who comments (“Triple-Frame Model,” 314): “I prefer Todorov’s
approach: use the traditional ‘genre’ for historical genres. … We may further distinguish types
of genres as needed. Subgenres, superordinate genres, speech genres … and modal genres … are
still genres – as subcategories are categories. Using ‘genre’ for multiple scales of text category
highlights the interconnections of those scales … and reduces confusion arising from obscuring
those connections.”
69 G. Fauconnier and M. B. Turner first proposed their theory in a 1994 paper, derived from
conceptual metaphor theory (Lakoff and Johnson) and Mental Spaces theory (Fauconnier).
See “Conceptual Projection and Middle Spaces,” https://www.ssrn.com/abstract=1290862
particular, this theory helps to explain the mental processes by which people con-
struct meaning by integrating information into a conceptual whole. The central
idea of conceptual blending theory is that we integrate a structure that gives rise to
new meaning that is more than the sum of its parts. In other words, new meaning
is apparent in the emergent structure (the “blend”) that is not available in the
parts that build it. Consider the classic example, “that surgeon is a butcher!”70
To make sense of this statement, we selectively recruit information from two
mental “input” spaces (“surgery” and “butchery”). We integrate this information
to create a new structure of “surgeon as butcher,” and a new meaning emerges that
is not available in either input of “surgeon” as incompetent or unethical.
I return to the Gospel of Mark, which as a whole is multi-generic like its
prologue. An audience that progresses through the narrative will continue to
activate and recruit elements from a number of “inputs” or schemata in order to
process “genre chunks.” Some genre chunks will become more important than
others in the process of conceptualizing the primary genre schema, and some
may not inform it at all.71 Blending theory suggests that an audience selectively
recruits and integrates elements from key inputs/schemata in order to concep-
tualize the whole gospel.72 In addition, an audience recruits an organizing frame
for the blend to help guide, structure, and provide meaning for the other inputs.
The organizing frame may be internal, recruited from one of the input spaces
(Hebrew historical narrative? Greco-Roman biography?); or it may be an ex-
ternal, recruited from the socio-rhetorical context (gospel?). If “gospel” is the or-
ganizing frame for Mark, then Mark signals this frame with the title euangelion,
the Isaianic citation and the story of John the Baptist at the opening.73 Indeed,
(2008). They develop the theory in The Way We Think: Conceptual Blending and the Mind’s
Hidden Complexities (New York: Basic Books, 2002), esp. 39–49. For an elaboration of con-
ceptual blending theory, see also V. Evans and M. Green, Cognitive Linguistics: An Introduction
(Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2006), 400–44. For applications of conceptual
blending to literature, see Schneider and Hartner, “Cognitive Theory”; M. Sinding, “Genera
Mixta: Conceptual Blending and Mixed Genres in Ulysses,” New Literary History 36 (2005):
589–619; idem, “Framing Monsters, Multiple and Mixed Genres, Cognitive Category Theory,
and Gravity’s Rainbow,” Poetics Today 31 (2010): 465–505. Sinding (“Genera Mixta,” 605) sug-
gests that Fauconnier’s and Turner’s “taxonomy of blends” might usefully map on to Fowler’s
taxonomy of forms and genre change (compare Fauconnier and Turner, Way We Think, 119–35
with Fowler, Kinds of Literature, 170–90).
70 J. Grady, T. Oakley, and S. Coulson, “Blending and Metaphor,” in Metaphor in Cognitive
Linguistics: Selected Papers from the 5th International Cognitive Linguistics Conference, Am-
sterdam, 1997, ed. R. W. Gibbs, Jr. and G. J. Steen (Amsterdam: John Benjamins, 1999), 101–24;
see also Evans and Green, Cognitive Linguistics, 401–2.
71 Schneider and Hartner, “Cognitive Theory,” 395.
72 According to blending theory, “not all elements and relations from the inputs are
projected into the blend” (Fauconnier and Turner, Way We Think, 47).
73 L. C. A. Alexander observes that Mark (and the other gospels) can do without a birth
narrative, but not without the preaching of John the Baptist; see “What Is a Gospel?,” in The
Cambridge Companion to the Gospels, ed. S. C. Barton (Cambridge: Cambridge University
Press, 2006), 13–33.
the idea of “proclamation” lends a structure to the prologue (1:1, 14–15) and the
whole work. This frame guides and implicitly selects certain features for expan-
sion in the rest of the narrative as Mark develops the blend space according to
its own logic: after the narrator proclaims the good news … then God proclaims
through Isaiah the prophet … John the Baptist proclaims (1:4) … Jesus proclaims
(1:14–15) … various characters proclaim, or fail to (5:18–20; 16:1–8) … and in
the end the audience is compelled to proclaim the good news of God’s coming
kingdom (13:9–13; 16:1–8). Conceptual blending thus provides heuristic way to
account for the process of genre-assignment on the macro-level.74
Finally, current literary theorists have identified “uncover[ing] the nature
and principles of genre combination and change” as the most pressing issue
for genre theory today.75 Burridge’s important treatment of generic growth and
mixture anticipates this concern. As I mentioned above, he follows Fowler’s
3-stage model for the development of genres, in which the life of a genre moves
from origins to imitation and expansion to modulation.76 He argues that ancient
authors mixed genres constantly, providing fuel for generic change. On this
basis, Burridge makes one of the central points of his book that, “new genres do
not spring into being fully formed, like Athena from the head of Zeus, but they
emerge and develop through the mixing and extending of previous forms.”77
In other words, he states, “no genres develop ex nihilo: instead, they extend or
amalgamate other existing genres.” Burridge concludes, rightly, that neither can
we understand “gospel” as a genre that developed ex nihilo. He goes to provide
an illuminating treatment of generic mixture in his discussion of the genre of
Greco-Roman biography. He comments that:
74 Building on H. W. Attridge’s 2001 SBL presidential address (“Genre Bending in the
Fourth Gospel,” JBL 121 [2002]: 3–21), Johannine scholarship has developed ways that John
transforms or “bends” various ancient Jewish and Greco-Roman genres in order to convey
ideological and theological meaning. For example, see the essays in K. B. Larsen, ed., The Gospel
of John as Genre Mosaic, SANt 3 (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 2015); R. Sheridan,
“John’s Gospel and Modern Genre Theory: The Farewell Discourse (John 13–17) as a Test
Case,” ITQ 75 (2010): 287–99; K. B. Larsen, Recognizing the Stranger: Recognition Scenes in the
Gospel of John, BibInt 93 (Leiden: Brill, 2008). While it is certainly right to view John’s Gospel
as a “mosaic” of genres that “does” something rhetorically, the tendency of this scholarship is to
look at John’s bending of secondary forms (discourses, speeches, prayers). What I am asking is
also how the Gospels recruit primary genres that blend into an emergent structure that serves
a rhetorical purpose. Answering this question may illuminate the function of the secondary
forms.
75 Sinding, “Genera Mixta,” 589. See also D. Duff, “Introduction,” in Modern Genre Theory,
ed. idem (New York: Longman, 2000), 1–24; M. Hartner, “Hybrid Genres and Cultural Change:
A Cognitive Approach,” in The Cultural Dynamics of Generic Change in Contemporary Fiction:
Theoretical Frameworks, Genres and Model Interpretations, ed. M. Basseler, A. Nünning, and
C. Schwanecke, Studies in English Literary and Cultural History 56 (Trier: Wissenschaftlicher
Verlag Trier, 2013), 163–82, 168, 189.
76 Burridge, What Are the Gospels?, 44–45. See my discussion above.
Consciously and unconsciously, authors import new material across … boundaries to alter
and develop the genres, mixing them as part of their artistic sophistication; therefore,
models of genre with an element of spectrum or continuum about them will be more
helpful than concepts of pigeon-holes or strict classifications.78
But the very point at which Burridge has a breakthrough is also the point at
which he falls short. This is because he fails to apply his findings about generic
mixture and change to the gospels themselves. That is, he does not allow for the
possibility that ancient people recognized the “gospel” as a genre that sprung
up sui generis but not ex nihilo, through combination and change in literary
relationship to contemporaneous works.79
D. Conclusion
Burridge has convinced us to account for gospel genre in light of contempora-
neous literature and the one genre Greco-Roman biography. I contend that we
build on his work by exploring ways that producers and users recognized the
gospels as networks of genres that they formulated into emergent, conceptual
wholes. Thus, I suggest that instead of relying on a one-dimensional literary ap-
proach to genre, it is time to update gospel genre studies in light of advances in
interdisciplinary genre theory. Instead of looking for “the” genre of the gospels,
it is time to shift the focus to their “genre structure.” Instead of accounting for
gospel genre largely in light of formal literary features, it is time to account for
genre in light of the texts’ producers and receivers in their social contexts. Finally,
instead of viewing gospel genre as a mediator of literary expectations only, it is
time to view genre as a means of shaping cultural memory and social identity.
Burridge’s conclusions rightly overturned reductive views of the gospels
embedded by form criticism; but these conclusions can lead to new kinds of
reductive readings. For example, “focus on the subject” can reduce the gospels
to “christologies” on one hand; or, on the other, to accounts about the founder
of a movement whose exemplary acts are worthy of imitation. The gospels are
not less than these things; but they are surely much more. Once we recognize
and begin to address the social and cognitive nature of genre, we will no longer
be able to make dichotomous claims, such that the gospels were not directed to
specific communities but to all Christians; or that they are not about particular
situations but about Jesus. In fact, a multidimensional approach to gospel genre
may help to bridge the longstanding gap between the concerns of historical-
critical and literary-critical approaches to the gospels.
79 E.‑M. Becker recently suggested that the Gospels are a genre sui generis; but her idea of a
genre sui generis is equivalent to a sub-genre. That is, Becker views the gospels as an innovative
subgenre of history-writing. By contrast, I suggest that we view gospel as genre sui generis that
encompasses a network of contemporaneous literary genres.
The Genre(s) of the Gospels
Expectations from the Second Century
Carl Johan Berglund
A. Introduction
Analysis of how the New Testament Gospels interact with ancient genres should
not be made solely on the basis of comparisons with other pieces of ancient
literature, but also in view of their early reception. The way in which ancient
authors reflected on and used materials found in the Gospels may inform us
of how they viewed the genre participation of these four early Christian narra-
tives. This paper considers the reception of Gospel material in three different
second-century writings: §§ 18–86 of the apocryphal Acts of John, Exhortation
to the Greeks by Clement of Alexandria, and Heracleon’s hypomnēmata on the
Gospel of John. It argues that the author of the Acts of John expects the Gospels
to contain discipleship patterns to be emulated by Christians, that Clement
regards them as sources of divine truth, and that Heracleon expects them to be
depictions of past events that not only contain Christian teachings of continuous
relevance for the Christian movement, but also are symbolically significant in
themselves. The variance of these apparent expectations from early readers can
be accommodated by viewing the Gospels as participating in multiple genres,
including ancient historiography, Christian proclamation, Judeo-Christian pro-
phetic writings, and ancient biography.
Genre analysis of the four Gospels in the NT generally proceeds by compar-
ing significant features of the Gospels to those of other ancient literary writings,
using an understanding of genre as static categories based on a number of fea-
tures of the text. This comparative methodology is what allows scholars such as
Charles H. Talbert, David E. Aune, and Richard A. Burridge to identify several
significant similarities between the Gospels and ancient biographies (βίοι).1 Both
categories identify a main character who is the focus of the work. Both consist of
continuous prose narratives constructed as a combination of numerous stories,
1 C. H. Talbert, What Is a Gospel? The Genre of the Canonical Gospels (Philadelphia: For-
tress, 1977); D. E. Aune, The New Testament in Its Literary Environment, LEC 8 (Philadelphia:
Westminster, 1987), 17–67; R. A. Burridge, What Are the Gospels? A Comparison with Graeco-
Roman Biography, 3rd ed. (Waco, TX: Baylor University Press, 2018).
114 Carl Johan Berglund
logia, anecdotes, and speeches, all revolving around the main character. In con-
trast to modern biographies, both pay little or no attention to the childhood or
psychological development of their subject, but proceed quickly, after a brief
presentation of his ancestry, to the beginning of his public life. Both have their
main character be the subject of a large percentage of their verbs, with another
large percentage occurring in sayings, speeches, or quotations from the main
character.2
Then again, similarities to one category of literature do not rule out other
similarities to other categories, and the ancient βίος is not the only genre that has
been proposed for the four Gospels. Adela Yarbro Collins, for instance, points
out that the evangelists were, in all probability, more familiar with ancient Jewish
ἱστορίαι than with Greek βίοι. She argues that the Gospels share their concern
with the fulfillment of God’s plan with the Jewish scriptures, and concludes that
the genre “historical monograph” is as good a suggestion as “ancient biography.”3
Yarbro Collins suggests that “future work should explore the question of whether
the Gospels constitute a hybrid or mixed genre, rather than fitting neatly and
entirely in the ‘family’ of bioi.”4
Burridge’s comparative approach is a valid and productive endeavor, and
has the undeniable advantage of interacting with what was, beyond doubt,
an established literary genre in Greco-Roman antiquity.5 It has, however, the
disadvantage that βίος is a broad genre that ranges over books that are rather
different in style and content.6 Even though it can be argued that biographies of
philosophical teachers are a convenient intermediate category between ancient
βίοι and their sub-genre εὐαγγέλια or βίοι Ἰησοῦ,7 the broad nature of the genre
may help explain why many recent commentaries fail to take full advantage of
the genre identification. Burridge himself admits that “the narrower the genre
proposed for the gospels, the harder it is to prove the case, but the more useful
2 Talbert, What Is a Gospel?, 16–17, 133–35; Aune, New Testament in Its Literary Environ-
ment, 46–65; Burridge, What Are the Gospels?, 234–36. Cf. J. M. Smith, Why Βίος? On the
Relationship between Gospel Genre and Implied Audiences, LNTS 518 (London: Bloomsbury
T&T Clark, 2015), 31–38; S. Walton, “What Are the Gospels? Richard Burridge’s Impact on
Scholarly Understanding of the Genre of the Gospels,” CurBR 14/1 (2015): 81–93, 85–86; M. R.
Licona, Why Are There Differences in the Gospels? What We Can Learn from Ancient Biography
(New York: Oxford University Press, 2017), 3–4.
3 A. Yarbro Collins, “Genre and the Gospels,” JR 75 (1995): 239–46.
4 Yarbro Collins, “Genre and the Gospels,” 246.
5 See, for instance, Plutarch’s reflection on the goal of a βίος in Alex. 1.2–3, cited in Licona,
Why Are There Differences, 4–5.
6 Walton, “What Are the Gospels?,” 90. Licona (Why Are There Differences, 5) recognizes
that Greco-Roman biography was a broad and flexible genre that often included elements that
were, strictly speaking, more historiographical than biographical in nature. His conclusion that
“for our purposes, we only need to recognize that the New Testament Gospels bear a strong
affinity to Greco-Roman biography” (5) leaves much to be desired, as it in no way rules out
equally strong affinities with other genres.
7 The latter term is suggested in Burridge, What Are the Gospels?, 247.
The Genre(s) of the Gospels 115
the hermeneutical implications; whereas the wider the genre, the easier it is to
demonstrate that the gospels belong to it, but the less helpful the result.”8
Another disadvantage of the comparative approach is its dependence on the
traditional understanding of genre as a static taxonomy of literary texts based
on shared features of style, form, and content.9 Although it is tidy for every text
to belong to precisely one genre, and for all texts within a genre to share all the
defining features of the genre, there are, in practice, large difficulties in finding
a meaningful set of characteristics that are actually common to all members of
a given genre, not to mention the difficulties of describing the evolution of old
genres into new varieties.10 Genre theorists have, in later years, developed new
understandings of genre, based on family resemblance and cognitive models,
that take the malleable and dynamic properties of genres into account, and allow
a single text to participate in multiple genres simultaneously.11 One simple, but
flexible, model is to view a genre as a set of expectations of a text, triggered by the
author’s initial presentation of his material – expectations that guide the reader
through the reading,12 but may be either fulfilled or subverted by the text.13 By
evaluating the expectations on the Gospels exhibited in their early reception, we
may not only identify a correct genre, but also gain an understanding of how this
genre guided early readers’ interpretations of these writings.14
8 Burridge, What Are the Gospels?, 247–48, cf. I.52.

9 For variations on this understanding of the genre concept, see A. J. Köstenberger, “The
Genre of the Fourth Gospel and Greco-Roman Literary Conventions,” in Christian Origins and
Greco-Roman Culture: Social and Literary Contexts for the New Testament, ed. S. E. Porter and
A. W. Pitts, TENTS 9 (Leiden: Brill, 2013), 435–62, 435.
10 A. Fowler, Kinds of Literature: An Introduction to the Theory of Genres and Modes (Ox-
ford: Clarendon, 1982), 37–53; R. Williamson, “Pesher: A Cognitive Model of the Genre,” DSD
17 (2010): 336–60, 341–44. Fowler (Kinds of Literature, 37, 287 n. 2) traces the idea that a text
can simultaneously participate in more than one genre to the eighteenth-century Scottish critic
Henry Home, also known as Lord Kames.
11 Williamson, “Pesher,” 343–46.
12 In this context, the category of “readers” includes the original author, who experiences
the text while producing it.
13 An accessible introduction to this concept can be found in R. Sheridan, “John’s Gospel
and Modern Genre Theory: The Farewell Discourse (John 13–17) as a Test Case,” ITQ 75
(2010): 287–99, 296. Cf. the pregnant formulation in N. Gaiman, “The Pornography of Genre,
or the Genre of Pornography,” in idem, The View from the Cheap Seats: Selected Nonfiction
(New York: HarperCollins, 2013), 39–48, 43: “Genre, it had always seemed to me, was a set
of assumptions, a loose contract between the creator and the audience.” Gaiman goes on to
explain that a musical without songs, a Western movie without gunfights, or a pornographic
film without sex would leave the audience with an undeniable feeling of having been cheated.
The main features of these genres may appear in works of other kinds, but only incidentally,
he insists (44): “If the plot exists to get you from the lone cowboy riding into town to the first
gunfight to the cattle rustling to the showdown, then it’s a Western. If those are simply things
that happen on the way, and the plot encompasses them, can do without them, doesn’t actually
care if they are there or not, then it’s a novel set in the old West.”
14 J. A. Diehl (“What Is a ‘Gospel’? Recent Studies in the Gospel Genre,” CurBR 9/2 [2011]:
171–99) characterizes recent scholarship on the genre of the NT Gospels as following either
There is much to commend about Burridge’s study, and it is not without

reason that it has managed the rare accomplishment of reversing the scholarly
consensus.15 There is, however, a discrepancy between his strictly comparative
methodology and his more forward-looking definition of the genre concept,
which speaks not only of “a group of literary works sharing certain ‘family resem-
blances’” – as might be expected from his extensive list of similarities between
βίοι and εὐαγγέλια – but also goes on to specify that these resemblances are
“functioning as a set of expectations to guide interpretation.”16 These expecta-
tions go largely unexplored through his comparative analysis, but reappear when
Burridge sets out to discuss hermeneutical implications of his study – how the
identification of the Gospels as βίοι should inform modern exegesis.17 Thus, Bur-
ridge appreciates the understanding of genre as a set of expectations when inter-
preting the Gospels as participating in a specific genre, but not when identifying
the genre(s) in which the Gospels participate.
Although there is no question that the similarities identified by Burridge
would contribute to the expectations among ancient readers that constituted the
Gospels’ participation in ancient genres, such expectations can also be studied
directly in the ancient reception. Among the myriad instances where ancient
authors discuss, react to, or use the Gospels for their own purposes, certain ex-
pectations can be discerned – information that actual ancient readers expected
to find in these narratives, or ways in which they believed the Gospels could
be understood.18 Of particular value is the early reception, before the political
concerns of Christian emperors came into the picture.
Using this methodology, I have previously demonstrated that Origen of Al-
exandria, in his commentaries on the Gospels of Matthew and John, understood
of two paths: the analogical approach, which aims to demonstrate that the Gospels are similar
to other ancient writings, and the derivational approach, which attempts to show them to be
unique. The approach suggested in this paper should constitute a third, independent path.
15 Walton, “What Are the Gospels?,” 86–88; Licona, Why Are There Differences, 3.
16 Burridge, What Are the Gospels?, 40–41. The impression that literary features are primary
and reader expectations are secondary in Burridge’s understanding of genre is strengthened by
the disappearance of the word “expectation” from his summary on p. 43: “Genre is made up of
a wide range of features, comprising both form and content, several of which play an important
part in signaling the genre at the start.”
17 Burridge, What Are the Gospels?, 247: “Genre is a major literary convention, forming
a ‘contract’ between author and reader; it provides a set of expectations for the reader about
the author’s intentions, which helps in the construction of the meaning on the page and the
reconstruction of the author’s original meaning,” followed by the assertion that “appreciation of
genre is crucial as a major ‘filter’ through which the author ‘encoded’ his message, and through
which we may ‘decode’ the same.” A similar emphasis is present in Burridge’s discussion of
genre theory in Burridge, What Are the Gospels?, I.4–I.6, where the “set of expectations” is aimed
to guide “our reading.”
18 In contrast to Smith (Why Βίος?, 1–19) who wants to use the genre participation of the
Gospels to study its target audience, this paper studies audience reactions to draw conclusions
about their genre participation.
the Gospels to participate, simultaneously, in two genres: ancient historiography

and Christian teaching.19 On the one hand, Origen expressly expects the Gospels
to give him an accurate depiction (εἰκὼν ἱστορική) of the events (πράγματα)
they describe.20 On the other, he explicitly states his expectation that they, above
all, proclaim the spiritual truths of Christianity, even when this truthfulness
necessitates a narration that is false, strictly speaking, at the historical level. This
double, almost self-contradictory, expectation is not merely Origen’s reading
strategy when encountering diverging accounts in Synoptic comparisons, but
his informed opinion as an ancient literary critic, formed in the course of writing
a continuous Gospel commentary.21
This paper extends the study of ancient readers’ expectations of the NT
Gospels from Origen’s commentaries to three writings from the second century,
selected to provide three different perspectives on the Gospels. Heracleon’s hy-
pomnēmata, the earliest known commentary on the Gospel of John, provides
a literary-critical view on the Gospels that is similar to Origen’s.22 Clement’s
Exhortation to the Greeks, an early apology for the Christian faith, gives a
perspective from an intellectual engaged in an argument that is not entirely
dependent on the Gospels. And the Acts of John, a narrative with undeniable
similarities with the Gospels themselves, illuminates how they can be used in a
non-argumentative context.
B. Ancient and Modern Understandings of Genre
Several different ways of thinking about genre exist in the scholarly literature,
each with their own (dis)advantages and uses in specific contexts.23 While there
is nothing inherently wrong in constructing a genre concept that is based entirely
19 C. J. Berglund, “Understanding Origen: The Genre(s) of the Gospels in Light of Ancient
Greek Philology and Modern Genre Theory,” Scrinium 12 (2016): 181–214, 181, 212–14.
20 The term “ancient historiography” is in this context used to denote any ancient writing
aimed at describing past events with accuracy, and not as a claim that any ancient writing fulfilled
the demands of modern historiography. See J. Marincola, “Genre, Convention, and Innovation
in Greco-Roman Historiography,” in The Limits of Historiography: Genre and Narrative in
Ancient Historical Texts, ed. C. S. Kraus, MnemSup 191 (Leiden: Brill, 1999), 281–324.
21 Berglund, “Understanding Origen,” 203–14. Similarly, Aune (New Testament in Its
Literary Environment, 66–67) makes use of ancient reception of the Gospels to note that the
references to the Gospels as λογία (“statements”) and ἀπομνημόνευματα (“reminiscences”)
in the writings of Papias, Justin Martyr and Eusebius suggest that they were viewed as notes
regarding what Jesus said and did, that were written down but not necessarily given a final
literary form. Cf. Justin Martyr, 1 Apol. 66.2; 67.2; Dial. 106.3; Eusebius, Hist. eccl. 2.15; 3.39.
22 The original title of Heracleon’s writing is not known. The one used here is taken from the
description in Origen, Comm. Jo. 6.15/92 (ed. C. Blanc, Origène: Commentaire sur saint Jean,
vol. 2: Livres VI et X, SC 157 [Paris: Cerf, 1970], 196, l. 42): ἐν οἷς καταλέλοιπεν ὑποµνήµασιν
(“in the hypomnēmata he [Heracleon] has left behind”).
23 C. A. Newsom, “Pairing Research Questions and Theories of Genre: A Case Study of the
on categorizations that are beneficial to the modern scholar, there is more to be

gained, when it comes to using genre to understand the potential meaning(s) of
a text, by using a genre concept that allows the rhetorical strategy of the author
to remain part of the picture. On the other hand, the intentions of the original
author cannot be said to exhaust the question of genre participation, since a
writing aimed at participating in one genre can also be found, independently of
the author’s intentions, to participate in another – especially if it comes to define
a new genre by serving as a prototype for future writings.24
When ancient literary critics – a category that should include Origen and
Heracleon – approached a text for analysis, they did not ordinarily discuss
their interpretation in terms of genre.25 The six standard questions by which
ancient literary commentaries are introduced concern other issues: (1) the aim
(σκοπός) of the book; (2) to what end it can be made useful (χρήσιμος); (3)
its place (τάξις) in an order of lecture; (4) the reason (αἰτία) for its title; (5)
whether it is to be considered a genuine (γνήσιος) or spurious (νόθος) work by
its alleged author; and (6) its division into main arguments (ἡ εἰς τὰ κεφάλαια
διαίρεσις).26 Reflections on what a modern scholar would call genre appeared
in relation to several of these questions. Origen’s Commentary on the Song of
Songs begins – at least in Rufinus’s translation – with identifying the Song as an
epithalamium.27 In his Commentary on the Gospel of Matthew, he discusses the
distinction between a simile (ὁμοίωσις), which he takes to be a general category,
Hodayot,” DSD 17 (2010): 270–88, 270–76, helpfully enumerates six different approaches to
genre: (1) a classification system in which every speech act can be categorized in one specific
genre; (2) a network of family resemblance that allows for more flexibility in such classification;
(3) an intuitive comparison with previously encountered literature that aids the reader in com-
prehending a text; (4) an implicit social contract between writer and reader; (5) a set of modes
by which the world can be conceptualized as meaningful; and (6) a cultural system in which
genres gain meaning by interaction with one another.
24 See C. A. Newsom, “Spying Out the Land: A Report from Genology,” in Bakhtin and
Genre Theory in Biblical Studies, ed. R. Boer, SemeiaSt 63 (Atlanta: SBL, 2007), 19–30.
25 For Origen’s use of ancient literary criticism, see B. Neuschäfer, Origenes als Philologe,
Schweizerische Beiträge zur Altertumswissenschaft 18 (Basel: Friedrich Reinhardt, 1987).
For Heracleon’s, see A. Wucherpfennig, Heracleon Philologus: Gnostische Johannesexegese im
zweiten Jahrhundert, WUNT 142 (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2002).
26 The Greek terms used here are from Ammonius, Comm. Arist. Cat. 7.15–8.10, which is
examined more thoroughly in Berglund, “Understanding Origen,” 188–92. On introductions to
ancient commentaries, see also Neuschäfer, Origenes als Philologe, 57–67; I. Hadot, Simplicius:
Commentaire sur les Catégories, PhA 50 (Leiden: Brill, 1990), 29–30; J. Mansfeld, Prolegomena:
Questions to Be Settled before the Study of an Author or a Text, PhA 61 (Leiden: Brill, 1994),
10–12; R. E. Heine, “The Introduction to Origen’s Commentary on John Compared with the
Introductions to the Ancient Philosophical Commentaries on Aristotle,” in Origeniana Sexta:
Origène et la Bible, Actes du Colloquium Origeniarum Sextum Chantilly, 30 août – 3 septembre
1993, ed. G. Dorival and A. Le Boulluec, BETL 118 (Leuven: Leuven University Press, 1995),
3–12.
27 Origen, Comm. Cant. pr.1.1. Cf. Berglund, “Understanding Origen,” 197–200.
and a parable (παραβολή), which he takes to be a sub-category of simile.28 And

in the introduction to his Commentary on the Gospel of John, he defines the
concept of gospel (εὐαγγέλιον) as any written or non-written communication
teaching the central Christian claim of Christ’s divinity.29 The identification of
the Gospel of John as an εὐαγγέλιον is, thus, decisive for a certain set of expec-
tations Origen has on the text. It does not, however, preclude him from having
additional, and unrelated, expectations of the same writing, which is apparent
when he expects the Gospels to depict past events accurately. This double set of
unrelated expectations can be accommodated by a modern understanding of
genre as a multivalent framework of reader expectations.
In modern times, the relationship between expectations and interpretation
of meaning has been explored by, among others, E. D. Hirsch.30 Hirsch insists
that the meaning of an utterance is contained neither in the sequence of words
alone nor in that sequence combined with a specific context. For meaning to
appear, Hirsch claims, there must also be a set of linguistic norms applicable to
the specific utterance, a set of norms that can never be completely determined
in advance, since they are entirely dependent on the situation. To bridge the
distance between the undeterminable set of all norms of language and the spe-
cific norms needed to understand a specific utterance, Hirsch argues, we use
sets of rules associated with a category of utterances sharing a family resem-
blance. Hirsch concludes that such a category may be called by its traditional
name, “genre.”31
Hirsch provides illustrations of the dysfunctional understandings that
can arise when a reader brings the “wrong” set of expectations to a text, and
argues that even though readers can revise their initial identification of genre
in the course of reading a text, a final understanding is always determined by
the last made genre identification, since “all understanding of verbal meaning
is necessarily genre-bound.”32 In order to be understood, Hirsch maintains,
speakers must make use of conventions arising from their own past experi-
ences with linguistic utterances, experiences that the interpreters are likely to
share. Understanding will only occur, Hirsch argues, if the interpreters proceed
under the same system of expectations – that is, if they correctly identify the
intrinsic genre of the utterance.33 Because of the sequential nature of language,
28 Origen, Comm. Matt. 10.4. Cf. Berglund, “Understanding Origen,” 201–2.

29 Origen, Comm. Jo. 1.5/27–15/88. Cf. Berglund, “Understanding Origen,” 203–7.
30 E. D. Hirsch, Jr., Validity in Interpretation (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1967),
68–111.
31 Hirsch, Validity in Interpretation, 68–71. Cf. 103.
32 Hirsch, Validity in Interpretation, 71–76, 76. Hirsch recognizes this interaction as a
variant of the hermeneutical circle, in which the whole can be understood only through its
parts, but the parts can be understood only through the whole, and adds (76–77) that certain
individual parts have a role in suggesting what the whole looks like.
33 Hirsch, Validity in Interpretation, 78–81.
interpreters must form an anticipated sense of the whole – a Vorverständnis –

before they can begin to understand the parts, and descriptions of a reasonable
specific genre can be useful tools for this propaedeutic process, Hirsch con-
cludes.34
Thus, Hirsch defines a concept of genre that has little to do with the clas-
sification of the Gospels as “belonging” to this or that ancient genre, but every-
thing to do with how preconceived notions and subtle clues interact to form
the expectations that guide the process by which readers, including the original
author, construct meaning from the sequence of words they encounter. Hirsch’s
concept of genre corresponds quite nicely to how ancient literary critics pro-
ceeded – judging from the introductions to their commentaries – by considering
the σκοπός (aim) or ὑπόθεσις (overall argument) of the text as a whole before
discussing its individual parts.35
Alastair Fowler criticizes the traditional concept of genre as a static tax-
onomy determined by common features of style, form, and content. In practice,
he argues, the few characteristics that can be demonstrated to be common to
all members of any given genre are too few and inconsequential to provide a
meaningful definition of the category.36 Not even the typical unhappy ending
of a tragedy, Fowler claims, can be used as an indispensable characteristic of the
genre, since there are tragedies that end in happy reconciliation or in an inter-
mediate state that can be described as neither happy nor unhappy.37 Features
that are often present, and that feel characteristic for the genre, can be identified,
he maintains, but not features that are always present.38 Based on this argument,
Fowler maintains that a genre can never be defined in the abstract, only identi-
fied based on family resemblance within a set of literature.39 In addition, Fowler
points out that since genres are constantly mutating and evolving, there is always
an inevitable gap between the genre to which the author originally aimed his
work and the genre by which any given reader identifies it.40 To minimize this
34 Hirsch, Validity in Interpretation, 81–85, 110.

35 See above at n. 26, as well as K. Eden, Hermeneutics and the Rhetorical Tradition:
Chapters in the Ancient Legacy and Its Humanist Reception, Yale Studies in Hermeneutics (New
Haven: Yale University Press, 1997), 21–41; C. J. Berglund, “Interpreting Readers: The Role
of Greco-Roman Education in Early Interpretation of New Testament Writings,” in Scriptural
Interpretation at the Interface between Education and Religion, ed. F. Wilk, TBN 22 (Leiden:
Brill, 2018), 204–47, 228–32.
36 Fowler, Kinds of Literature, 37–39. Cf. the endorsement of Fowler’s views in Williamson,
“Pesher,” 341–45.
37 Fowler, Kinds of Literature, 39–40. Cf. the discussion of Aristotle’s theory of the genre of
tragedy in G. W. Most, “Generating Genres: The Idea of the Tragic,” in Matrices of Genre: Au-
thors, Canons, and Society, ed. M. Depew and D. Obbink, Center for Hellenic Studies Colloquia
4 (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2000), 15–35, 22–26.
39 Fowler, Kinds of Literature, 41–44.
40 Fowler, Kinds of Literature, 48–53. Cf. Marincola’s argument (“Greco-Roman His-
difficulty, Fowler recommends the study of early reception to identify previous

states in the development of the genres of older writings.41
The modern theorist Glenn W. Most holds a certain number of truths about
genre to be “self-evident,” among which he counts that no text belongs exclusively
to a single genre, and that it is always possible to invent new genres, but only
by transforming existing ones.42 His own understanding of the genre concept is
entirely based on expectations:
Genre is often formulated as a set of rules, it may be better to understand it as a his-
torically contingent and flexible reciprocal system of mutually calibrated expectations,
correlating some participants who are more or less active (call them poets, through all
poets are listeners before, while, and after they are poets) with others who are more or less
passive (call them listeners or readers, though even today few human recipients seem to
be as passive as our machines still are) within a loosely bounded but largely self-conscious
cultural community (whose borders in space and time are often quite unclear), in which
each group delegates to the other specific roles, duties, pleasures, and anxieties. Like most
forms of tacit knowledge, genre functions implicitly better than explicitly, by practical per-
formance rather than by theoretical precept: indeed, every act of rendering genre explicit
seems patently incomplete.43
In Most’s view, the implicit nature of genre conventions implies that no limitation
is impossible to cross, but also that there is a fine line between a nonobservance
that will be regarded as the clumsy error of the uninitiated, and a contravention
that will be hailed as the hallmark of an inventive genius. Ultimately, only the
reactions of the recipients can discern the two.44
Thus, a significant scholarly tradition identifies reader expectations as the
constitutive elements of genre, which opens for studying the genre(s) of the
Gospels through the many cases where ancient authors discuss, react to, or use
these texts. Such an analysis will be useful not only for the classification of the
four Gospels in relation to one or more ancient genres, but also in order to dis-
cern how their participation in genres guided ancient readers to find meaning
and utility in their narratives. In the following sections, such reception of the
Gospels in three particular writings – §§ 18–86 of the apocryphal Acts of John,
Clement’s Exhortation to the Greeks, and Heracleon’s hypomnēmata on the
Gospel of John – will be discussed in terms of how their expectations contribute
to the meaning they find in the four Gospels of the NT.
toriography”) that Greco-Roman historiographical genres were never static categories where
individual writers followed the rules of the game, but always were constantly changing strategies
of literary composition, re-invented by each additional author.
42 Most, “Generating Genres,” 16. Cf. Smith, Why Βίος?, 24–26.
43 Most, “Generating Genres,” 17–18.
44 Most, “Generating Genres,” 18.
C. The Acts of John
The Acts of John is a collection of early Christian traditions about the apostle
John, son of Zebedee.45 It is known from its use in the Manichean Psalter,46 and
from the proceedings of the Second Council of Nicaea in 787, where presumably
iconoclastic passages were read and discussed. Its text is incompletely preserved,
mainly in manuscripts of the later, and otherwise unrelated, Acts of John by
ps.‑Prochorus (5th c.).47 The authorship, provenance,48 and original title of
the second-century writing are unknown.49 According to a line-count in the
Stichometry by Nicephorus (ca. 758–828), it was once about the same length as
the Gospel of Matthew. About two thirds of that material may be extant, even
though the great variance among extant manuscripts makes it difficult to deter-
mine which passages were part of the second-century original.50
1. Delimitations of the Material

Throughout its reception history, the Acts of John have been read as part of a
larger collection of Acts of John, Paul, Peter, Andrew, and Thomas, which has
been collectively dismissed as a heretic invention. Eusebius (ca. 260–340) rejects
“the Acts of Andrew and John and other apostles,” claiming that no recognized
early Christian authority refers to them, that their style differs from that of
the apostles, that the tendency of these writings are at odds with true ortho-
45 E. Junod and J.‑D. Kaestli, eds. and trans., Acta Iohannis, 2 vols., CCSA 1–2 (Turnhout:
Brepols, 1983); J. N. Bremmer, ed., The Apocryphal Acts of John, SAAA 1 (Kampen: Kok Pharos,
1995); P. J. Lalleman, The Acts of John: A Two-Stage Initiation into Johannine Gnosticism, SAAA
4 (Leuven: Peeters, 1998); A. Jakab, “Actes de Jean: État de la recherche (1982–1999),” Rivista di
Storia e Letteratura Religiosa 36/2 (2000): 299–334.
46 The third- or fourth-century Manichaean Psalter enumerates several events narrated in
the Acts of John, Paul, Peter, Andrew, and Thomas, revealing that the five ancient Acts of the
Apostles by that time came as a set. See C. R. C. Allberry, ed., A Manichaean Psalm-Book, Part
II, Manichaean Manuscripts in the Chester Beatty Collection 2 (Stuttgart: Kohlhammer, 1938),
142–43, 193.
47 T. Zahn, ed., Acta Joannis (Erlangen: Deichert, 1880), 3–165.
48 E. Junod and J.‑D. Kaestli (L’histoire des Actes apocryphes des apôtres du IIIe au IXe siècle:
Le cas des Actes de Jean, Cahiers de la Revue de Théologie et de Philosophie 7 [Genève: Im-
preimerie La Concorde, 1982], 4; eidem, Acta Iohannis, 2:692–700) suggest the second half of
the second century in Egypt. Lalleman (Acts of John, 244–70) prefers the second quarter of the
second century in Asia Minor. I. Czachesz (Commission Narratives: A Comparative Study of
the Canonical and Apocryphal Acts, Studies on Early Christian Apocrypha 8 [Leuven: Peeters,
2007], 120–22) argues that the earliest version of the Acts of John arrived at Alexandria in the
last quarter of the second century, and that the rhetorical material in Acts John 87–115 was
added at the beginning of the third century.
49 The traditional title πράξεις Ἰωάννου (“Acts of John”) is taken from Eusebius, Hist. eccl.
3.25.6.
50 H.‑J. Klauck, The Apocryphal Acts of the Apostles: An Introduction, trans. B. McNeil
(Waco, TX: Baylor University Press, 2008), 1–7, 16–18.
doxy.51 Photius (ca. 810–893) attributes all five Acts to one Leucius Charinus,
describes the style of the work as both uneven and strange (ἀνώμαλός τε καὶ
παρηλλαγμένη) and its contents as silly and self-contradictory. Ultimately, he
rejects it as the source and mother of all heresy (πάσης αἱρέσεως πηγὴν καὶ
μητέρα).52 These sweeping rejections illustrate how reading the Apocryphal Acts
of the Apostles as a single work by a single author will, unavoidably, emphasize
inconsistencies and oddities in the collection. To understand the messages and
tendencies comprised within this diverse collection of literature, we must allow
its comprising parts to be heard as individual acts and stories, without undue
expectations of coordination and consistency.
The problem of divergent traditions combined within a single source is not
solved simply by limiting the study to the Acts of John, since this writing has
a complicated history of composition where various parts seem to have been
added at various points of its reception. In order to study gospel reception in
the second century, rather than the third or fourth, such additions need to be
excluded. Since no complete manuscripts of the Acts of John are extant, this
procedure begins with extracting older material from the fifth-century Acts of
John by ps.‑Prochorus, with guidance from ancient citations.53 Since evaluations
of various parts of the text regularly take into account the theology expressed in
the passages in question, conclusions regarding the theology of the early Acts of
John run a considerable risk of circular reasoning.
There is a general consensus that §§ 1–17, which recount John’s activities in
Rome, belong to the later material, as they express a Trinitarian theology that
does not belong in the second century.54 There is a lacuna of unknown length be-
tween §§ 55 and 58, where John is supposedly active in Smyrna. Two competing
passages have been suggested to fill that gap,55 but neither is clearly connected
to the rest of the text, and could possibly be independent traditions. §§ 87–105
are not included in the text by ps.‑Prochorus, but are extant in a separate four-
teenth-century manuscript. Since there are several references to this material in
the proceedings of the second Council at Nicea, it is clear that they were part of
51 Eusebius, Hist. eccl. 3.25.6–7.

52 Photius, Bibl. 114 (PG 103:389–92).
53 Junod and Kaestli, L’histoire, 1; Lalleman, Acts of John, 5–6; Czachesz, Commission
Narratives, 93, 120–22. The otherwise attractive option of reading the text as it appears in one
of the better manuscripts necessitates, in this case, that we read a fifth-century text rather than
a second-century one.
54 Junod and Kaestli, Acta Iohannis, 2:840–42; Lalleman, Acts of John, 12–13. Czachesz
(Commission Narratives, 93–97) discusses the content of the lost beginning to the Acts of John,
perhaps consisting of a longer cycle of stories related to Miletos, which is mentioned in Acts
John 18.1; 19.4; 37.2. He concludes that it is more probable that the lost beginning consisted
of a brief report of John’s release from the isle of Patmos after the death of Domitian. Lalleman
(Acts of John, 16) arrives at similar conclusions.
55 Junod and Kaestli, Acta Iohannis, 1:145–53; Lalleman, Acts of John, 9, 13–14.
the Acts of John available to the council fathers of 787,56 but not that they be-
long to the second century. Most scholars consider §§ 94–102 and 109 to be later
additions.57 István Czachesz, recognizing a Platonic influence in §§ 88–102 and
113, argues that §§ 87–115, which consist mostly of speech material, are early-
third-century additions to an original second-century text.58 In order to study
gospel reception of the second century, and not the third, this study will, there-
fore, consider §§ 18–86 only, and exclude the otherwise interesting rewriting of
the Gospels in §§ 88–102.59
2. Gospel Reception in Acts John 18–86

In what appears to be the oldest part of the Acts of John, §§ 18–86, we hear about
the apostle John’s activities in Ephesus.60 Like Jesus in the Gospels, John heals
the sick, preaches to the people, and confronts the local religious authorities.
Like Jesus, he also calls his hearers to repent and turn from evil, and teaches
them to pray for healing in their turn.61
As soon as John arrives in Ephesus, he finds the city governor Lycomedes
kneeling at his feet, begging him to tend to his wife Cleopatra, who seven days
earlier had fallen into paralysis (παραπλήγου γενονότος) and shows no signs
of improvement. John comes with him immediately, but Lycomedes – despite
stating that God has sent John to provide a benefaction (εὐεργεσία) to his wife –
falls into despair, and laments how Cleopatra’s early demise will, soon enough,
lead to his own death.62 In a striking contrast of attitudes, John urges him to
compose himself and trust in Christ’s ability to heal her:
56 Lalleman, Acts of John, 8–9.
57 Junod and Kaestli, L’histoire, 4; eidem, Acta Iohannis, 2:700–702; Lalleman, Acts of John,
59–66.
58 Czachesz, Commission Narratives, 115–20. In addition, T. W. Thompson (“Claiming
Ephesus: Pauline Legacy in the Acts of John,” in The Rise and Expansion of Christianity in
the First Three Centuries of the Common Era, ed. C. K. Rothschild and J. Schröter, WUNT 301
[Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2013], 379–400, 396) claims that it is widely recognized that a second
author, or a second set of redactors, takes over at the start of § 87.
59 For this fascinating gospel narrative, see I. Czachesz, “The Gospel of the Acts of John: Its
Relation to the Fourth Gospel,” in The Legacy of John: Second-Century Reception of the Fourth
Gospel, ed. T. Rasimus, NovTSup 132 (Leiden: Brill, 2010), 49–72. Czachesz argues for a lit-
erary dependence, not between the Acts of John and the Gospel of John, but their common
dependence on an older Johannine gospel tradition.
60 John arrives in Ephesus in Acts John 18.1, is called to Smyrna in 55.1–2, decides that it is
time to return to Ephesus in 58.1, and arrives back in the city in 62.1.
61 This recurrent pattern is clearly also present in the canonical Acts of the Apostles and,
to an indeterminable extent, the reception of the Gospels in the Acts of John also constitutes
reception of Acts. Since it is rather clear that the activities of the disciples in Acts are patterned
on the activities of Jesus in the Gospels, however, a working hypothesis of the present study
is that the discipleship patterns in Acts are transparent enough to be traced back to the cor-
responding material in the Gospels.
62 Acts John 18.1–20.9.
Crying, Lycomedes approached Cleopatra’s bed and lamented in many more words. But
John pulled him away, saying: “Stop your cries and unfit words! It is not proper to disobey
him who appeared to you. Know that you will receive your spouse again! Therefore, join
us who have come for her, and pray to the God who you saw revealing himself to me in
your dreams. What is the matter, Lycomedes? Wake up, you too, and open your soul! Cast
off your heavy sleep! Beg the Lord, appeal to him for your spouse, and he will raise her
up.” But Lycomedes fell to the floor filled with grief.63
John realizes the dire situation in which he will find himself, if both the governor
and his wife are found unconscious and dying in his presence, and his growing
distress shows through in his anxious prayers for God to raise them from the
dead.64 He is heard, and Cleopatra is raised.65 John brings her to her husband’s
side, and instructs her on how to pray for his revival. She complies, and he too is
raised.66 Thus, the protagonist of the story not only heals the ailing woman, but
teaches her to pass on the gift and to pray for the healing of others.
In another scene of the narrative, John finds himself in the theater of Ephesus,
in front of a multitude of spectators, who have brought before him all the old and
ailing women of the city, to see if he is able to heal them all.67 Before he does,68
he delivers a lengthy speech,69 expounding on the purpose of his journey to the
city: to convert the Ephesians from their evil ways to submit themselves to the
mercy of Christ, lest they should suffer in eternal misery:
Men of Ephesus, learn first why I am visiting your city, and why I am so outspoken among
you, even in this general assembly, so that this may be clear to you all. I have been sent
on a mission that is neither human in origin nor a pointless journey. I am not a merchant
making bargains or profits, but Jesus Christ, whom I preach, intends to convert all of
you who are held by unbelief and sold to shameful desires, and through me deliver you
from your error, for he is both compassionate and kind. By his power, I will confound the
unbelief even of your commander, by raising up those who lie before you. Everyone can
63 Acts John 21.1–9 (ed. Junod and Kaestli, CCSA 1:165–67): Καὶ ἔτι πλείονα λέγων
ὁ Λυκομήδης πρὸς τὴν Κλεοπάτραν προσελθὼν τῇ κλίνῃ ἀναβοῶν ἐθρήνει. ὁ δὲ Ἰωάννης
ἀπέσπασεν αὐτὸν εἰπών· Μετάστηθι τῶν θρήνων τούτων καὶ τῶν ἀναρμόστων σου ῥημάτων.
οὐ προσήκει ἀπειθῆσαι τῷ θεωμένῳ σοι. ἵσθη γὰρ ἀπολαμβάνων τὴν ἑαυτοῦ σύμβιον. σὺν ἡμῖν
τοίνυν στὰς τοῖς διὰ ταύτην ἐληλυθόσιν ἔπευξαι τῷ θεῷ ὃν εἶδες φανεροῦντά με δι᾿ ὀνειράτων.
τί οὖν ἐστιν ὦ Λυκόμηδες; διυπνίσθητι καὶ αὐτὸς καὶ ἄνοιξόν σου τὴν ψυχήν. ἀπόβαλε τὸν
πολὺν ὕπνον ἀπὸ σοῦ. δεήθητι τοῦ κυρίου, παρακάλεσον αὐτὸν ὑπὲρ τῆς συμβίου σου καὶ
ἀναστήσῃ. Ὁ δὲ πεσὼν ἐπὶ τοῦ ἐδάφους ἐθρήνει ὁλοψυχῶν.
64 Acts John 21.10–23.1.
65 Acts John 23.1–3.
66 Acts John 24.4–7.
67 Acts John 30.1–32.2.
68 Acts John 37.1.
69 Thompson (“Claiming Ephesus,” 398–99) remarks that John’s speeches in Acts John
33–36 and 39–45, call the hearers to believe, without specifying any specific content to be
believed, such as the resurrection of Christ. This lack of specificity indicates, for the present
author, that the object of the faith presented is not any specific propositions about Christ, but
Christ himself. Thompson argues (400) that the lack of reference to the resurrection is part of a
programmatic polemic against the legacy of the apostle Paul in Ephesus.
see in what condition and in what illnesses they find themselves. I cannot succeed if they
perish, so they will be healed. … Therefore, men of Ephesus, convert yourselves, in the
knowledge that even kings, rulers, dictators, impostors, and warlords depart naked from
this world to suffer pain in eternal misery!70
This scene can be compared to the preaching activities of the Matthean Jesus,
who repeatedly insists that his hearers are not only less virtuous than they
imagine,71 but also at risk of eternal punishment.72 The Matthean Jesus is also
often said to have healed all those that were brought to him.73 With this narrative
depiction of the apostle John as a preacher and healer in the same way as Jesus,
the author of the Acts of John presents him as a successful disciple, who is able
to perfectly emulate the activities of his master.
At the apex of John’s public ministry in Ephesus, he decides to provoke the
pagan worshipers by, at the occasion of a prominent festival at the temple of
Artemis, turning up dressed in black instead of in the customary white. When
he has got everyone’s attention, he challenges Artemis to a duel: her worshipers
are to petition her to kill him on the spot, or he will bid his God to slay every
single one of the Gentiles who have gathered. The Ephesians, having seen the ill
being healed and the dead being raised up by John’s requests, are worried, and
John insists that either they must all convert, or he must die by their goddess.
When he prays, the Ephesians do not die, but the great temple of Artemis – one
of the seven wonders of the ancient world – instantly falls into pieces, crushing
both the high priest and the seven images of the gods under a pile of rubble. The
Ephesians do not hesitate to declare which god is the strongest, and promptly
agree to worship the god preached by John.74
In the aftermath of this dramatic mass conversion, a young relative of the
deceased high priest of the Artemis cult brings the body to John, and begs him
to restore the priest’s life. John is moved by the young man’s faith in Christ, and
grants his request:
70 Acts John 33.1–2; 36.5 (ed. Junod and Kaestli, CCSA 1:185–89): Ἄνδρες Ἐφέσιοι, γνῶτε
πρῶτον τίνος ἕνεκεν τῇ ὑμετέρᾳ πόλει ἐπιδημῶ … ἢ τίς ἡ τοσαύτη μου παρρησία πρὸς ὑμᾶς,
ὡς καὶ ἐν τῷ κοινῷ τούτῳ βουλευτηρίῳ πᾶσιν ὑμῖν κατάδηλον γενέσθαι. ἀπέσταλμαι οὖν
ἀποστολὴν οὐκ ἀνθρωπίνην οὐδὲ ἀποδημίαν ματαίαν· οὐδέ τις ἔμπορος τυγχάνω ἀντιπράσεις
ποιούμενος ἢ ἀντικαταλλαγάς· ἀλλ᾿ ὑμᾶς ὅλους ἐπιστρέφων ἀπιστίᾳ κεκρατημένους καὶ
ἐπιθυμίαις αἰσχραῖς πεπραμένους ὃν κηρύσσω Ἰησοῦν Χριστὸν εὔσπλαγχνος ὢν καὶ χρηστὸς
βούλεται δι᾿ ἐμοῦ τῆς πλάνης ὑμᾶς ἐξελέσθαι· οὗ δυνάμει καὶ τὴν τοῦ στρατηγοῦ ὑμῶν
ἀπιστίαν ἐλέγξω τὰς ἔμπροσθεν ὑμῶν κατακειμένας ἀνιστῶν, ἃς πάντες ὁρᾶτε ἐν οἵῳ εἴδει καὶ
ἐν οἷαις νόσοις ὑπάρχουσιν· καὶ οὐκ ἔστι μοι τοῦτο νῦν … ὀλυσμένων αὐτῶν καὶ θεραπείαις
συναιρεθήσονται. […] ὅθεν, ἄνδρες Ἐφέσιοι, ἐπιστρέψατε ἑαυτούς, ἐπιστάμενοι καὶ τοῦτο
ὅτι οἱ βασιλεῖς, οἱ δυνάσται, οἱ τύραννοι, οἱ ἀλαζόνες, οἱ πολέμους χειρωσάμενοι γυμνοὶ τῶν
ἐνθένδε ἀπαλλασσόμενοι, ἐν κακοῖς δὲ αἰωνίοις συγγινόμενοι ὀδυνῶνται.
71 Matt 5:22, 28, 32, 44–47; 7:21–23; 23:23–28; 25:44–45.
72 Matt 5:20, 29–30; 24:50–51; 25:10–12, 30, 41–46.
73 Matt 4:23–24; 8:16; 9:35; 12:15; 14:14; 15:30; 19:2; 21:14.
74 Acts John 37.1–44.1.
John said: Our Lord is Jesus Christ, who will demonstrate his power in your dead relative
by raising him up. … Still holding the young man by the hand he said: “I say to you, my
child, go and raise the dead yourself. Do not say anything except: ‘John, the servant of
God, says to you: Arise!’” The young man went to his relative and said only this, in the
presence of a large crowd, and brought him back to John alive. When he saw the one who
had been raised, John said: “Now, when you have been raised, you do not truly live, since
you are not partaker and heir to the true life. Do you want to belong to him in whose
name and power you have been raised? Believe now, and you will live for all eternity.” He
immediately believed in the Lord Jesus, and kept to John from then on.75
Even after his spectacular demonstration at the temple of Artemis, John does
not perform the requested miracle himself, but asks his newest disciple – the
young relative who has brought the dead body to him – to perform it himself,
borrowing the authority of John and his God. And, in the utter triumph of John’s
mission trip to Ephesus, the high priest of the temple of Artemis himself is not
only raised from the dead, but also converted to the Christian faith.
In a later story, a man named Callimachus76 is infatuated with a married
woman – Drusiana, the wife of Andronicus – and intent on having her, no
matter the consequences. When she dies in a fever, he bribes her husband’s es-
tate manager – whose name is Fortunatus – to let him into her grave to have
sex with her dead body. Callimachus starts to undress Drusiana’s dead body,
but before he can complete the act a snake appears out of nowhere, and kills
both Callimachus and Fortunatus.77 When John and Andronicus arrive at dawn
to break bread at her tomb, they find three dead bodies rather than one. John
raises Callimachus from the dead and questions him about his plans with the
partially undressed female corpse by whose side he has been found. Callimachus
confesses his sin, and expresses his wish to now become one of those who hope
in Christ (γενέσθαι τῶν ἐπὶ Χριστὸν ἐλπιζόντων).78
With the facts of the case clarified, John raises also Drusiana from the dead.
But when it comes to raising Fortunatus, the trusted servant who has betrayed
his mistress, he delegates the task to Drusiana, who does not hesitate to do it:79
75 Acts John 46.7; 47.3–7 (ed. Junod and Kaestli, CCSA 1:229–31): Καὶ ὁ Ἰωάννης· Ὁ
κύριος ἡμῶν ἐστιν Ἰησοῦς Χριστός, ὅστις τὴν δύναμιν αὐτοῦ δείξει ἐν τῷ νεκρῷ σου συγγενεῖ
ἀναστήσας αὐτόν. […] Καὶ ἔτι τὸν νεανίσκον ἐκ τῆς χειρὸς κρατῶν ἔφη· Σοὶ λέγω, τέκνον,
πορευθεὶς αὐτὸς τὸν τεθνεῶτα ἔγειρον μηδὲν εἰπὼν ἢ τοῦτο μόνον· Λέγει σοι ὁ τοῦ θεοῦ
δοῦλος Ἰωάννης· Ἀνάστα. Ὁ δὲ νεανίσκος πορευθεὶς ἐπὶ τὸν ἴδιον συγγενῆ μόνον τοῦτο εἰπὼν
συνόντος αὐτῷ ὄχλου πολλοῦ, ἔχων αὐτὸν ζῶντα εἰσῆλθεν εἰς τὸν Ἰωάννην. ὁ δὲ Ἰωάννης
ἰδὼν τὸν ἐγηγερμένον εἶπε· Νῦν ἀναστὰς οὐ ζῇς ὄντως οὐδὲ τῆς ἀληθινῆς ζωῆς κοινωνὸς καὶ
κληρονόμος· βούλει γενέσθαι οὗ ὀνόματι καὶ δυνάμει ἀνέστης; καὶ νῦν πίστευσον, καὶ ζήσεις
εἰς ἅπαντας αἰῶνας. Ὁ δὲ αὐτόθι πιστεύσας ἐπὶ τὸν κύριον Ἰησοῦν ἦν λοιπὸν προσκαρτερῶν
τῷ Ἰωάννῃ.
76 The character is introduced in Acts John 63.1, but his name is not mentioned until 73.4.
77 Junod and Kaestli, Acta Johannis, 2:692–94, identify the serpent of justice as an Egyptian
motif, and use the passage as argument for the Alexandrian provenience of the Acts of John.
78 Acts John 63.1–76.7.
79 Acts John 79.1–81.5.
She did not hesitate but went, rejoicing in spirit and pleased in her soul, to the corpse of
Fortunatus and said: “God of the ages, Jesus Christ, God of truth, who has granted me to
see wonders and signs, and allowed me to become a partaker of your name, … I beg you,
Jesus Christ, to not refuse what your Drusiana asks you, but to raise Fortunatus, even
though he made every effort to betray me.” And, taking the hand of the deceased, she said:
“Rise up, Fortunatus, in the name of Jesus Christ, our Lord, even though you are certain
to be most hostile to God’s servant girl once again.” Fortunatus arose, and when he saw
John in the tomb, and Andronicus, and Drusiana raised from the dead, and Callimachus
as a believer, and the rest of the brothers and sisters glorifying God, he said: “How far have
the powers of these terrible men reached! I did not want to be raised, but would rather be
dead, to avoid seeing them.” Having said that, he fled out of the tomb.80
Even in these morbid circumstances, John is true to his program of encouraging

his new disciples to follow him not only in a Christian faith and lifestyle, but also
in healing the sick and raising the dead. This insistence that disciples should per-
form the deeds of their masters is not a new development in the Acts of John, or
even in the Christian movement. The duty to mimic one’s teacher was a general
expectancy on the disciples of religious and philosophical leaders.81 It is also a
prominent theme in the Synoptic Gospels, where Jesus repeatedly sends out his
disciples to cast out demons, cleanse lepers, heal the sick, and raise the dead.82
The stories from the Acts of John recounted here do not include any explicit
references to the Gospels, but they are rich with intertextual parallels, where the
message of the narrative is transposed from the Galilean and Judean context
of Jesus and his disciples to the Ephesian setting of John and his audience. The
healing and preaching activities that Jesus, in the Gospels, performs and teaches
to his disciples are here performed by John and taught to his disciples among the
newly converted Ephesians. This transformation reveals how the author of this
part of the Acts of John interprets the Gospels: not with any weight on whether
they accurately depict past events, but with emphasis on the patterns of behavior
they present for Christian disciples. As the Gospels depict Jesus as preaching,
80 Acts John 82.1–83.3 (ed. Junod and Kaestli, CCSA 1:285–89): Ἣ δὲ μὴ μελλήσασα
⟨ἐν⟩ ἀγαλλιάσει πνεύματος καὶ χαρᾷ ψυχῆς προσελθοῦσα τῷ Φορτουνάτου πτώματι εἶπεν·
Ὁ θεὸς τῶν αἰώνων Ἰησοῦς Χριστός, ὁ θεὸς τῆς ἀληθείας· ὁ παρασχόμενός μοι ἰδεῖν τέρατα
καὶ σημεῖα· ὁ χαρισάμενός μοι τοῦ ὀνόματός σου κοινωνὸν γενέσθαι· […] δέομαί σου, Ἰησοῦ
Χριστέ, μὴ παραπέμπῃ τὴν σὴν Δρουσιανὴν αἰτουμένην σε τὸν Φορτουνᾶτον ἀναστῆναι,
εἰ καὶ μάλιστα προδότης μου ἐπειράθη γενέσθαι. Καὶ λαβομένη τῆς χειρὸς τοῦ τεθνεῶτος
ἔφη· Ἀνάστα, Φορτουνᾶτε, ἐν τῷ ὀνόματι Ἰησοῦ Χριστοῦ τοῦ κυρίου ἡμῶν, κἂν μάλιστα
ἐχθρότατος ὑπάρχῃς τῆς δούλης τοῦ θεοῦ. Ὁ δὲ Φορτουνᾶτος ἀναστὰς καὶ ἰδὼν τὸν Ἰωάννην
ἐν τῷ μνήματι καὶ τὸν Ἀνδρόνικον καὶ τὴν Δρουσιανὴν ἐκ νεκρῶν ἐγηγερμένην καὶ τὸν
Καλλίμαχον πεπιστευμένον καὶ τοὺς λοιποὺς ἀδελφοὺς δοξάζοντας τὸν θεὸν εἶπεν· Ὢ μέχρι
ποῦ τῶν δεινῶν ἀνθρώπων τούτων αἱ δυνάμεις ἐχώρησαν· οὐκ ἐβουλόμην ἐγηγέρθαι ἀλλὰ
μᾶλλον τεθνάναι, ὅπως αὐτοὺς μὴ ὁρῶ. Καὶ ταῦτα εἰπὼν φυγὼν ἐξῆλθε τοῦ μνήματος.
81 See, e. g., M. Hengel, The Charismatic Leader and His Followers, trans. J. C. G. Greig,
repr. (Eugene, OR: Wipf & Stock, 2005), 25–27.
82 Matt 10:1, 8; cf. Mark 6:6b–13; Luke 9:1–6; 10:1, 8–9. The raising of the dead is spe-
cifically mentioned in Matt 10:8.
healing the sick, and instructing his disciples to do the same, the Acts of John
portray the apostle John as taking up the mantle from his master, and instructing
the Christian converts of Ephesus to continue the process.
Since the use of the Gospels in §§ 18–86 of the Acts of John reveals only one
particular reader expectation, the conclusions we can draw regarding how the
author of these paragraphs viewed the genre participation of the Gospels are
limited. A single expectation can be a constituent element of several different
genres, and we do not know which expectations the author of the Acts of John
could exhibit in other contexts. We may, however, note that the expectation
exhibited by the Acts of John is entirely compatible with the identification of
the Gospels as βίοι. As Burridge argues, one of the most common functions of
ancient biographies – besides the encomiastic purpose of glorifying the pro-
tagonist – was to provide an example for others to emulate.83 This purpose is
most prominent in Plutarch’s Lives, where the author repeatedly introduces his
biographies with reflections on the value of observing virtuous deeds (ἀρετῆς
ἔργοις) performed by others,84 and chose the noblest people as models for
one’s own behavior.85 It is also abundantly clear in the introduction to Lucian’s
Demonax, where the biographer gives two reasons for his choice of subject: for
Demonax to be remembered, and for young philosophers to copy him.86 The
expectation that the Gospels provide patterns of behavior for Christian disciples
may, therefore, be counted as an example of receiving them as participating in
the genre of ancient biography.
D. Clement’s Exhortation to the Greeks
Clement of Alexandria was a proficient Christian intellectual, and a productive

writer. He lived and taught in Alexandria until the earliest years of the third
century, when the persecution under Septimus Severus forced him to relocate to
Caesarea, where he died shortly before 215 CE.87 The common assumption that
he was born of pagan parents in Athens seems to be based solely on his apparent
83 R. A. Burridge, “Reading the Gospels as Biography,” in The Limits of Ancient Biography,
ed. B. C. McGing and J. Mossman (Swansea: Classical Press of Wales, 2006), 31–49, 43; Bur-
ridge, What Are the Gospels?, 145–47, 180–83. Interestingly enough, Burridge presents the
exemplary purpose of the Gospel of Matthew as next to self-evident (ibid., 208), but leaves it
to one side in the case of the Gospel of John, since – as he states (229) – they seem not to be
“relevant to the expressed purpose of the text itself ” in John 20:30–31.
84 Plutarch, Per. 1.2–4.
85 Plutarch, Aem. 1.3.
86 Lucian, Demon. 1–2.
87 D. Dawson, Allegorical Readers and Cultural Revision in Ancient Alexandria (Berkeley,
CA: University of California Press, 1992), 183–84; E. F. Osborn, Clement of Alexandria (Cam-
bridge: Cambridge University Press, 2005), 1–2.
knowledge of this city, and not on any explicit claims. Without any reference
to his own conversion, Clement recounts his quest for a deeper knowledge of
Christianity, which led him to study with six different Christian teachers in
Greece, Italy, Palestine, and finally Alexandria.88
The Exhortation to the Greeks is by no means a text where Clement makes the
most of the NT Gospels, nor does it live up to G. W. Butterworth’s description
that “hardly a page can be found without some quotation from the Old or New
Testaments.”89 On the contrary,90 Clement works mainly from classical Greek
literature, including Homer, Plato, Euripides, and the Sibylline Oracles, to make
his argument that Greek pagan traditions are prejudiced,91 deny the true God,92
and teach questionable morals.93 For the present investigation, the Exhortation
provides a case where the Gospels are not retold or expounded exegetically, but
used as argumentative ammunition in another context.
1. Previous Research on Clement’s Use of Scripture

In the most thorough investigation of Clement’s interpretative practices to date,
David Dawson holds that Clement basically “understands scripture as a kind
of tape recording of divine speech.”94 Dawson argues that Clement – following
Justin Martyr – found the primary importance of biblical literature in its ability
to function as a vehicle by which the Logos can speak to its reader. Consequently,
Clement is mainly interested in the prophetic messages of the Jewish and early
Christian writings, whether spoken by Jesus, Moses, Paul, Abraham, or any
other divine spokesperson. Dawson maintains that Clement views this divine
voice as the ultimate source of any true philosophical statement, which is why he
can build his argument on quotations from Greek as well as Jewish and Chris-
tian literature. In addition, Dawson points out that since the divine voice is, in
88 C. P. Cosaert, The Text of the Gospels in Clement of Alexandria, NTGF 9 (Atlanta: SBL,
2008), 3–6.
89 G. W. Butterworth, ed. and trans., Clement of Alexandria: The Exhortation to the Greeks;
The Rich Man’s Salvation; To The Newly Baptized, LCL 92 (London: Heinemann, 1919), xi–xviii
(“Introduction”), xiii. Cf. similar claims in E. F. Osborn, “Clement and the Bible,” in Dorival
and Le Boulluec, Origeniana Sexta, 121–32, 121; Cosaert, Text of the Gospels, 2.
90 Clement’s Exhortation is extant in a tenth-century manuscript, the Arethas Codex or
Parisinus gr. 451, and in a nearly identical eleventh-century manuscript, Mutinensis gr. 126.
The work is available in several editions, including Butterworth, LCL 92 (see n. 87); C. Mon-
désert and A. Plassart, eds. and trans., Clément d’Alexandrie: Le Protreptique, 2nd ed., SC 2
(Paris: Cerf, 1949); O. Stählin and U. Treu, eds., Clemens Alexandrinus, vol. 1: Protrepticus und
Paedagogus, 3rd ed., GCS 12 (Berlin: Akademie-Verlag, 1972); M. Marcovich, ed., Clementis
Alexandrini Protrepticus, VCSup 34 (Leiden: Brill, 1995).
91 Clement, Protr. 2.22.3.
92 Clement, Protr. 2.23.1; 5.64.3–66.5.
93 Clement, Protr. 2.36.1; 3.1.1; 4.59.2–61.4.
94 Dawson, Allegorical Readers, 186.
principle, pre-textual, Clement is less bound by the exact reading of the text than
previous allegorists, such as Philo, but can find the basis for his interpretations
on any level of the text.95
David Robertson connects Clement’s focus on the divine voice to the idea –
first expressed by Philo – that the true meaning of any utterance is defined by
the ἔννοια (“thought”) in the mind of the speaker, to which the utterance gives
access.96 Philo expresses the idea that the thoughts of the mind are primary to the
utterances of the mouth,97 and – Robertson argues – deserves credit as being the
first to express the view that meanings are immaterial thoughts that get carried
around in the vessel of spoken discourse.98 Robertson describes how Clement
uses this idea to argue that when God observes human beings who pray, he is
aware not only of their spoken utterances but also of the thoughts that precede
their words:
For he [the knowledgeable believer] is convinced that God knows and understands every-
thing, not only the voice but also the thought, because our hearing, which works through
bodily orifices, does not reach apprehension from its bodily power, but from a kind of
sensual perception and from the discernment of what is signified by a meaningful sound.99
Consequently, if Clement believed the ἔννοια expressed by biblical literature to

originate with the Logos, it is quite reasonable that he would forego the dis-
tortions introduced by the human authors and aim for the pure principle behind
the expression.
Eric Osborn notices two distinguishable interpretive strategies in Clement’s
use of biblical literature, and maintains that this practice implies that Clement
views the text as belonging to two identifiable genres: “divine oracle” and “true
philosophy.” Osborn claims that the philosophical genre matches Clement’s use
of logic and reason to discuss the meaning of various scriptural passages, and
that the oracular genre corresponds to his use of allegory and symbolism. In
both cases, Osborn holds, Clement considers the text to provide divine truth.100
Carl P. Cosaert notes that “Clement’s concept of the divine Word or logos
working among all nations in preparation for the coming of Christ enables him
95 Dawson, Allegorical Readers, 184–87, 205–12, 229–31. Cf. the endorsement in Cosaert,
Text of the Gospels, 22–24.
96 D. Robertson, Word and Meaning in Ancient Alexandria: Theories of Language from
Philo to Plotinus (Aldershot: Ashgate, 2008), 33–44.
97 Robertson, Word and Meaning, 16, 19, 23–24. Cf. Philo, Det. 127–128.
98 Robertson, Word and Meaning, 10.
99 Clement, Strom. 7. 7. 36.5 (ed. A. Le Boulluec, Clément d’Alexandrie: Les Stromates, Stro-
mate VII, SC 428 [Paris: Cerf, 1997], 134): Πέπεισται γὰρ εἰδέναι πάντα τὸν θεὸν καὶ ἐπαΐειν,
οὐχ ὅτι τῆς φωνῆς μόνον, ἀλλὰ καὶ τῆς ἐννοίας, ἐπεὶ καὶ ἡ ἀκοὴ ἐν ἡμῖν, διὰ σωματικῶν πόρων
ἐνεργουμένη, οὐ διὰ τῆς σωματικῆς δυνάμεως ἔχει τὴν ἀντίληψιν, ἀλλὰ διά τινος ψυχικῆς
αἰσθήσεως καὶ τῆς διακριτικῆς τῶν σημαινουσῶν τι φωνῶν νοήσεως. Cf. Robertson, Word and
Meaning, 42.
100 Osborn, “Clement and the Bible.”
to discern a divine voice behind the words of any author.”101 Cosaert discerns a
clear hierarchy behind Clement’s use of Greek, Jewish, and Christian literature,
where pagan authors are considered able to receive divine truth indirectly, Jew-
ish authors directly but partially, but only the NT can express the full form of
the divine Word.102 Clement was so immersed in the NT, Cosaert argues, that its
words and expressions “became part and parcel of his own vocabulary,”103 which
leads to a wide variety in accuracy between his verbatim scriptural quotations,
precisely reflecting a manuscript reading, and his vague allusions, based entirely
on memory.104 Furthermore, Cosaert points out that “Clement’s Gospel citations
focus almost exclusively around the words of Jesus.”105 He argues that Clement’s
focus on the “divine voice” of scripture may explain the relative inaccuracy by
which he often quotes the Gospels: his focus has led him to be so familiar with
the words of Jesus that he only rarely looks them up in a manuscript.106
2. Gospel Use in the Exhortation

The features of Clement’s use of scripture observed by Dawson, Osborn, and
Cosaert are clearly manifested in his Exhortation to the Greeks, where most of
the – relatively few – instances where Clement refers to the Gospels consist of un-
modified excerpts inserted directly into his own argument. In this way, Clement
is making the Gospels’ words and statements his own in a way that must have
made it difficult for those unfamiliar with early Christian literature to distinguish
Gospel excerpts from Clement’s original prose.107
One example of this use of Gospel material is when Clement likens people
dominated by their passions to various wild animals, and concludes with his
most despicable category, λίθοι (“stones”):
The unintelligent ones are stones and logs. Indeed, people submerged in ignorance are
even more senseless than stones. Let the prophetic voice be present as a witness to you,
echoing the truth in pity of the ones who wear away their lives in ignorance and folly, for
“God is able to raise up children of Abraham from these stones.”108
This almost-verbatim quotation from Matt 3:9 is presented without any at-

tribution formula identifying the words as originating anywhere else than in
101 Cosaert, Text of the Gospels, 20.
102 Cosaert, Text of the Gospels, 20–21.
107 Osborn, Clement of Alexandria, 34, claims that the Exhortation is intended to be acces-
sible to Greek readers.
108 Clement, Protr. 1.4.1–2 (ed. Mondésert and Plassart, SC 2:56): Λίθοι δὲ καὶ ξύλα οἱ
ἄφρονες· πρὸς δὲ καὶ λίθων ἀναισθητότερος ἄνθρωπος ἀγνοίᾳ βεβαπτισμένος. Μάρτυς ἡμῖν
προφητικὴ παρίτω φωνή, συνῳδὸς ἀληθείας, τοὺς ἐν ἀγνοίᾳ καὶ ἀνοίᾳ κατατετριμμένους
οἰκτείρουσα· “δυνατὸς γὰρ ὁ θεὸς ἐκ τῶν λίθων τούτων ἐγεῖραι τέκνα τῷ Ἀβραάμ.”
Clement’s own mind. It is presented as an unexpected conclusion to Clement’s

simile of ignorant people to logs and stones, offering supernatural hope for
the uninitiated. It is, however, taken out of its original context, where John the
Baptist – not Jesus! – is insisting that membership in the people of Israel is no
substitute for proper repentance. The passage thus illustrates Clement’s use of
the Gospels as a repository of prophetic utterances whose divine truth is not
limited to their original contexts.109
This usage of biblical literature is not limited to the Gospel of Matthew. John
1:1 is used in a similar way,110 as is John 3:19,111 Eph 2:3–5,112 1 Pet 2:9–10,113
and several lines from the Psalms.114 The practice is not even limited to Chris-
tian literature. At least once – in the context of arguing that the Greek gods are
depicted as controlled by their passions – Clement inserts a quotation from the
Iliad into his argument, with no indication that it is a quotation: “From this, it
naturally follows that these amorous and passionate gods of yours are introduced
as having all kinds of human emotions. ‘For surely, mortal flesh is theirs.’”115 Ap-
parently, Clement did not limit his attentiveness for a divine voice deep under
the textual surface to Christian literature. When he found a way to bend the
Greek tradition to fit his own argument, he seized the chance. Although it is
possible that Clement would expect his Greek readers to recognize this line from
Homer, it is unlikely that the same readers would take his unattributed Gospel
quotations for what they are.
At the end of his treatise, Clement paraphrases the divine voice he discerns
behind the Gospels into an urgent exhortation placed into the mouth of Christ,
which he concludes with a passage from Matthew presented without an attribu-
tion formula:
This eternal Jesus, the one great high priest of his one God and Father, prays for people and
encourages them: “Listen, countless tribes – or, rather, those humans who are endowed
with reason – barbarian and Greek alike! The whole human race I call – I, their creator
according to the will of the Father. Come to me, and take your place under one God and
under the one Word of God …. All you icons, who no longer resemble your model – I want
to restore your resemblance to the archetype, so that you may become similar to me. I will
anoint you with the oil of faith, by which you cast away destruction, and I will show you
the unadorned figure of righteousness, by which you can ascend toward God. ‘Come to
109 Matt 11:27 is used in a similar way in Clement, Protr. 1.10.3, and Matt 25:41 in Protr.
9.83.2–3.
114 Ps 33:6 and 8:3 in Clement, Protr. 4.63.1–2, and Ps 64:32 and 70:4 in Protr. 10.106.5–
107.1.
115 Clement, Protr. 2.36.1 (ed. Mondésert and Plassart, SC 2:92): Τούτοις οὖν εἰκότως
ἕπεται τοὺς ἐρωτικοὺς ὑμῶν καὶ παθητικοὺς τούτους θεοὺς ἀνθρωποπαθεῖς ἐκ παντὸς εἰσάγειν
τρόπου. “Καὶ γάρ θην κείνοις θνητὸς χρώς.” (Cf. Homer, Il. 21.568–569.)
me, all who are weary and carry heavy burdens, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke on
you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your
souls. For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light.’”116
The transition from Clement’s paraphrase of the divine voice he discerns behind
the Christian scriptures to his verbatim quotation of Matt 11:28–30 is entirely
seamless and completely invisible to anyone who does not recognize this saying
from the Gospels. For the uninitiated reader, Clement equates his own formu-
lation of the Christian message with that of the evangelist – precisely because it
is this underlying message he is aiming for.
In what amounts to an elucidation of his own view of the Gospels, Clement
explains that the Savior speaks in many tones, and by several different means, in
order to work for human salvation. He mentions the burning bush and the fiery
pillar of Exodus,117 before proceeding to superior ways of speaking:
But since flesh is more honorable than a pillar or a bush, prophets speak loud and clear
after these things, the Lord himself speaking in Isaiah, himself in Elijah, himself in the
mouths of the prophets. But for you, if you do not believe in the prophets, if you consider
both the men and the fire to be a myth, the Lord himself will speak to you, he “who,
though he was in the form of God, did not regard equality with God as something to be
exploited, but emptied himself ” (Phil 2:6–7), the compassionate God who is eager to save
the human being. The Word himself speaks plainly to you, persuading the unbeliever. Yes,
I say, the Word of God has become human, so that even you may learn from a human how
it may be possible for a human to become a god.118
In this passage, Clement presents in plain terms his view of the Gospels: while
it is possible to hear the voice of the Lord in Greek poetry, pagan oracles, and
Jewish prophecies, the clearest and most direct form of communication available
116 Clement, Protr. 12.120.2–5 (ed. Mondésert and Plassart, SC 2:190–91): Ἀίδιος οὗτος
Ἰησοῦς, εἷς ὁ μέγας ἀρχιερεὺς θεοῦ τε ἑνὸς τοῦ αὐτοῦ καὶ πατρός, ὑπὲρ ἀνθρώπων εὔχεται καὶ
ἀνθρώποις ἐγκελεύεται “κέκλυτε, μυρία φῦλα,” μᾶλλον δὲ ὅσοι τῶν ἀνθρώπων λογικοί, καὶ
βάρβαροι καὶ Ἕλληνες· τὸ πᾶν ἀνθρώπων γένος καλῶ, ὧν ἐγὼ δημιουργὸς θελήματι πατρός.
Ἥκετε ὡς ἐμέ, ὑφ’ ἕνα ταχθησόμενοι θεὸν καὶ τὸν ἕνα λόγον τοῦ θεοῦ … […] Ὦ πᾶσαι μὲν
εἰκόνες, οὐ πᾶσαι δὲ ἐμφερεῖς· διορθώσασθαι ὑμᾶς πρὸς τὸ ἀρχέτυπον βούλομαι, ἵνα μοι καὶ
ὅμοιοι γένησθε. Χρίσω ὑμᾶς τῷ πίστεως ἀλείμματι, δι’ οὗ τὴν φθορὰν ἀποβάλλετε, καὶ γυμνὸν
δικαιοσύνης ἐπιδείξω τὸ σχῆμα, δι’ οὗ πρὸς τὸν θεὸν ἀναβαίνετε. “Δεῦτε πρός με πάντες οἱ
κοπιῶντες καὶ πεφορτισμένοι, κἀγὼ ἀναπαύσω ὑμᾶς· ἄρατε τὸν ζυγόν μου ἐφ’ ὑμᾶς καὶ μάθετε
ἀπ’ ἐμοῦ, ὅτι πραΰς εἰμι καὶ ταπεινὸς τῇ καρδίᾳ, καὶ εὑρήσετε ἀνάπαυσιν ταῖς ψυχαῖς ὑμῶν· ὁ
γὰρ ζυγός μου χρηστὸς καὶ τὸ φορτίον μου ἐλαφρόν ἐστιν.”
117 Clement, Protr. 1.8.1–3.
118 Clement, Protr. 1.8.3–4 (ed. Mondésert and Plassart, SC 2:63): Ἐπειδὴ δὲ καὶ κίονος καὶ
βάτου ἡ σὰρξ τιμιωτέρα, προφῆται μετ’ ἐκεῖνα φθέγγονται, αὐτὸς ἐν Ἡσαΐᾳ ὁ κύριος λαλῶν,
αὐτὸς ἐν Ἠλίᾳ, ἐν στόματι προφητῶν αὐτός· σὺ δὲ ἀλλ’ εἰ προφήταις μὴ πιστεύεις, μῦθον δ’
ὑπολαμβάνεις καὶ τοὺς ἄνδρας καὶ τὸ πῦρ, αὐτός σοι λαλήσει ὁ κύριος, “ὃς ἐν μορφῇ θεοῦ
ὑπάρχων οὐχ ἁρπαγμὸν ἡγήσατο τὸ εἶναι ἴσα θεῷ· ἐκένωσεν δὲ ἑαυτόν” ὁ φιλοικτίρμων θεός,
σῶσαι τὸν ἄνθρωπον γλιχόμενος· καὶ αὐτὸς ἤδη σοὶ ἐναργῶς ὁ λόγος λαλεῖ, δυσωπῶν τὴν
ἀπιστίαν, ναί φημι, ὁ λόγος ὁ τοῦ θεοῦ ἄνθρωπος γενόμενος, ἵνα δὴ καὶ σὺ παρὰ ἀνθρώπου
μάθῃς, πῇ ποτε ἄρα ἄνθρωπος γένηται θεός.
between God and human is the voice of Jesus in the Gospels. There, and only
there, the believer can listen directly to the divine voice that permeates all the
Christian scriptures.
Clement’s use of the Gospels in his Exhortation to the Greeks demonstrate
an expectation that they can function as a repository of true statements, a col-
lection of divine truths that is comparable, but superior, to the OT prophetic lit-
erature.119 In this writing, Clement displays no interest in what the Gospels have
to say about any historical events or any personal qualities of Jesus of Nazareth,
but is completely focused on their use as the purest source possible to divine
truths. This expectation can be compared to Origen’s similar expectation that
the Gospels above all proclaim the spiritual truths of Christianity, even to the
detriment of historical accuracy. Such an expectation does not identify any one
traditional genre, but may be combined with several narrative, biographical, and
epistolary genres. However, using Most’s or a similar understanding of genre
as a system of mutually calibrated expectations, we may define a genre – call
it “Christian teaching” or “Christian proclamation” – constituted by Clement’s
and Origen’s shared expectation to find Christian teachings expressed in the
text. Since Most finds it self-evident that no text belongs exclusively to a single
genre, such a definition would not exclude the possibility that an instance of
Christian proclamation simultaneously participates in a historiographical, epis-
tolary or biographical genre. Ancient biography and Christian proclamation
may be especially suitable to combine, since a depiction of the life of a famous
philosopher would be expected to contain some of his teachings.
E. Heracleon’s Hypomnēmata on the Gospel of John
One of our most interesting sources for the second-century reception of the
Gospels is Heracleon’s hypomnēmata on the Gospel of John – the earliest known
commentary on a writing in the emerging NT.120 Following the format of earlier
commentators on the classical Greek literature, Heracleon quotes or paraphrases
119 Since this expectation extends beyond the theme of Christology, Clement’s views poses
a problem for the argument in Burridge, “Reading the Gospels as Biography,” 34, that the
Gospels’ focus on Jesus makes them “nothing less than Christology in narrative form.” Clement
treats them rather like theology, and disregards the narrative form.
120 Heracleon’s comments on the Fourth Gospel were first systematically collected by A. E.
Brooke, ed., The Fragments of Heracleon, TS 1/4 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press,
1891). In the most influential study of Heracleon to date, E. H. Pagels (The Johannine Gospel
in Gnostic Exegesis: Heracleon’s Commentary on John, SBLMS 17 [Nashville: Abingdon, 1973])
argues that there is no “Gnosticism” in the Gospel of John proper, only it its interpretation
by Heracleon and other “Gnostic” teachers. Since then, the concept of “Gnosticism” has been
thoroughly criticized by, among others, M. A. Williams, Rethinking “Gnosticism”: An Argument
for Dismantling a Dubious Category (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1996); and
passage after passage of the Fourth Gospel, offering comments on individual

words, on details of the story, on possible metaphorical interpretations, and
on theological implications. As a competent literary critic, Heracleon is able
to perform word studies (γλωσσηματικόν), grammatical analysis (τεχνικόν),
and analysis of what its reported in the text (ἱστορικόν).121 As an early Chris-
tian interpreter, he frequently makes use of Matthean and Pauline traditions to
illuminate the Johannine text.122 Heracleon’s view of the Gospels is, therefore, an
informed opinion by a competent ancient reader.123
1. Quotation Analysis of Origen’s References to Heracleon

The main difficulty of assessing Heracleon’s expectations on the Gospels is that
his comments are only available through the mediation of other authors, who typ-
ically describe him as a heretical teacher connected to Valentinus and denounce
his “Valentinian” views.124 The difficulty that Heracleon’s words and views are
only transmitted by his adversaries necessitates close scrutiny of individual
references to discern whether the quoting author presents Heracleon’s ipsissima
verba, summarizes or paraphrases Heracleon’s views, or simply asserts that
Heracleon is a heretic.125 Ancient authors regularly adapted the style, wording,
and grammar of what they quoted to better fit their own argument – sometimes
forcing a sense that was completely foreign to the original context. Although
such adaptations were common and well-accepted among ancient readers, the
K. L. King, What Is Gnosticism? (Cambridge, MA: Belknap, 2003), and found to be inappro-
priate for the understanding of the early Christian movement.
121 The reorientation of the study of Heracleon to the perspective of Greco-Roman literary
criticism is pioneered by Wucherpfennig, Heracleon Philologus, who builds on previous studies
of Origen’s exegetical methodology by Neuschäfer, Origenes als Philologe; and F. M. Young,
Biblical Exegesis and the Formation of Christian Culture (Cambridge: Cambridge University
Press, 1997).
122 C. J. Berglund, Origen’s References to Heracleon: A Quotation-Analytical Study of the
Earliest Known Commentary on the Gospel of John, WUNT 450 (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck,
2020), 318–42.
123 I. Sluiter (“The Dialectics of Genre: Some Aspects of Secondary Literature and Genre
in Antiquity,” in Depew and Obbink, Matrices of Genre, 183–203) argues that the writers of
ancient commentaries are familiar with distinctions of genre and classifications of literature,
and apply these concepts in their work.
124 Irenaeus, Haer. 2.41; Tertullian, Val. 4; Elenchos = [Hippolytus], Haer. 6.pr.4; 6.29.1;
6.35.6; Clement, Strom. 4. 9. 71–72; Ecl. 25.1; Origen, Comm. Jo. passim. Cf. E. Thomassen,
“Heracleon,” in Rasimus, Legacy of John, 173–210, 174–77; Berglund, Origen’s References to
Heracleon, 1–5.
125 C. J. Berglund, “Evaluating Quotations in Ancient Greek Literature: The Case of
Heracleon’s Hypomnēmata,” in Shadowy Characters and Fragmentary Evidence: The Search
for Early Christian Groups and Movements, ed. J. Verheyden, T. Nicklas, and E. Hernitscheck,
WUNT 388 (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2017), 201–31, 203–6; Berglund, Origen’s References to
Heracleon, 4–10.
amount of adaptation made varied greatly from author to author, and from con-
text to context.126
Origen of Alexandria – in whose Commentary on the Gospel of John most
of the ancient references to Heracleon are preserved – uses a wide variety of
expressions to refer to previous Christian literature, including Heracleon’s
hypomnēmata. Although a large part of this variance is, in all probability,
simply intended to provide rhetorical variation, there are also certain terms
and grammatical constructions that can be used to discern different amounts
of adaptation.127 On occasion, when Origen wants to clarify that he is giving a
verbatim quotation, he adds the words αὐταῖς λέξεσιν (“with the very words”) to
his quotation formula.128 But most of his verbatim quotations are introduced by
a single verbum dicendi, such as φησί (“he says”) or λέγοντος (“saying”). When
Origen uses such a verb to attribute, to a previous author, a statement which he
presents in direct speech, his general practice is to give a verbatim or almost
verbatim quotation.129 In contrast, when Origen presents a statement in indirect
speech – whether by an infinitive construction or a complementizer such as ὡς
ἄρα (“that”) or ὅτι (“that”) – his adaptations are considerably more extensive.130
In these cases, we should speak of “summaries” or “paraphrases” rather than
quotations.131
When Origen paraphrases Heracleon, rather than presenting verbatim quo-
tations, he tends to presume that Heracleon adheres to the “Valentinian” views
described by Irenaeus and other early Christian heresiologists.132 The same
views recur when Origen asserts what Heracleon believes without referencing
126 P. A. Brunt, “On Historical Fragments and Epitomes,” ClQ n. s. 30 (1980): 477–94; C. D.
Stanley, Paul and the Language of Scripture: Citation Technique in the Pauline Epistles and Con-
temporary Literature, SNTSMS 69 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1992), 304–43;
D. Lenfant, “The Study of Intermediate Authors and Its Role in the Interpretation of Historical
Fragments,” Ancient Society 43 (2013): 289–305; Berglund, “Evaluating Quotations,” 206–17.
127 C. J. Berglund, “Discerning Quotations from Heracleon in Origen’s Commentary on the
Gospel of John,” in Origeniana Duodecima: Origen’s Legacy in the Holy Land, ed. B. Bitton-
Ashkelony and R. Corstjens, BETL 302 (Leuven: Peeters, 2019), 489–503, 491–502; Berglund,
Origen’s References to Heracleon, 92–105.
128 Examples include a quotation of Matt 10:28 in Origen, Mart. 34.70–72; a quotation of
Celsus in Origen, Cels. 1.12.1; and a quotation of Heracleon in Origen, Comm. Jo. 6.23/126.
129 This practice is exemplified by Origen, Comm. Jo. 2.10/72, where Origen uses φησίν to
present a verbatim quotation of Heb 1:2; by Comm. Jo. 2.10/78, where he uses γράφων (“writ-
ing”) to introduce an almost verbatim quotation of 1 Cor 12:4–6; and by Comm. Jo. 2.30/182,
where he inserts γάρ φησι (“for he says”) into a verbatim quotation of 2 Thess 2:11–12. Cf.
Berglund, Origen’s References to Heracleon,” 92–95.
130 As examples may be mentioned Origen, Comm. Jo. 2.20/135–136, where Origen makes
two adapted references to Eph 5:8, both in indirect speech, and Comm. Jo. 2.3/25, where he
paraphrases a teaching from Clement, Strom. 6.14.110.3, regarding the Gentile practice of wor-
shiping the sun, the moon, and the stars.
131 Berglund, “Discerning Quotations,” 493–97; idem, Origen’s References to Heracleon,
95–105.
132 Cf. Irenaeus, Haer. 1.1–7; 1.7.5.
a source: in Origen’s view, Heracleon is an acquaintance of Valentinus who de-

spises the OT, believes that the physical world is created by a secondary divinity,
the Maker or Demiurge (δημιουργός), and that the ultimate fate of human
beings is determined not by grace or moral conduct, but by whether they are
born with a spiritual, animated or material nature.133 Since these assertions all
go beyond what Origen can demonstrate in his verbatim quotations from Her-
acleon’s hypomnēmata, they are likely to be based on heresiological prejudice
rather than on an analysis of his work.134 Therefore, any study making use of
Origen’s references to Heracleon should take into account whether the material
appears to be quoted verbatim, summarized, paraphrased, or simply asserted by
Origen, and base the conclusions primarily on the more trustworthy summaries
and verbatim quotations.135
2. Heracleon’s Expectations of the Gospels

Even though all extant material from Heracleon is selected and presented by
an adversary, and cannot be assumed to provide a representative sample of his
exegesis, it does reveal a number of expectations of the Gospels that are, never-
theless, Heracleon’s genuine expectations, and can be used to estimate how he
viewed the genre(s) of the Gospels. Since the comments concern individual
passages rather than the Gospel of John as a whole, the characteristics of the
particular Johannine passages under consideration must also be taken into ac-
count.
Some of Heracleon’s comments concern the historical information given in
the Gospels. One example, which also reveals Heracleon’s recurrent interest in
the growth of the Christian movement, is when he takes Jesus’s remark that the
salvation is from the Jews (ἡ σωτηρία ἐκ τῶν Ἰουδαίων ἐστίν) in John 4:22 as a
description of the spread of the Christian message. Origen writes: “Furthermore,
‘because the salvation is from the Jews’ [is said] since ‘he was born,’ he [Hera-
cleon] says (φησίν), ‘in Judea’ – but [it is] not among them, for it was not all of
them who approved of him – and because it is from this people that the salvation
133 Origen, Comm. Jo. 2.14/100; 6.21/117; 6.39/200; 10.37/249–250; 13.44/294. Cf. Berg-
lund, Origen’s References to Heracleon, 312–17.
134 Berglund, Origen’s References to Heracleon, 328–36. Pace Pagels, Gnostic Exegesis, 49, 83,
112–13; Thomassen, “Heracleon,” 187, 193, 205, 207.
135 Berglund, Origen’s References to Heracleon, 5–10, 342–44. Origen’s references to Hera-
cleon have traditionally been referenced using Brooke’s numbering scheme, where the passages
in which Origen refers to Heracleon have been numbered from “Fragment 1” to “Fragment 48.”
In Origen’s References to Heracleon, this scheme has been extended, so that individual references
within these passages receive a secondary number. Furthermore, the almost two hundred ref-
erences in Origen’s Commentary on the Gospel of John have been identified as either a verbatim
quotation, a summary, an explanatory paraphrase, or a mere assertion. In Brooke’s “Fragment
34,” for instance, the study has identified Paraphrase 34.1, Quotation 34.2, Paraphrase 34.3, and
Summary 34.4. Cf. Berglund, Origen’s References to Heracleon, 248–50.
and the Word have come out into the world.”136 This is a typical example of how
Origen presents what appears to be verbatim quotations from Heracleon, with a
single φησίν (“he says”) inserting a few words into the sentence.137 In this com-
ment, Heracleon connects Jesus’s statement to the simple historical fact that the
Christian movement originates in Judea, the birthplace of its central figure, from
whence it has spread into the wider world. Heracleon’s interest in grammatical
details is revealed in his differentiation between the salvation being ἐκ (“from”)
the Jews – due to Christ’s ethnic identity – but not ἐν (“among”) them, since
most Jews rejected him as the Messiah.
A similar interest in the historical level of the text may be present when
Heracleon, according to Origen’s summary, describes the son of the royal
official of John 4:46–54 as being ἐν τῷ ὑποβεβηκότι μέρει τῆς μεσότητος τῷ
πρὸς θάλασσαν (“in the lower part of the middle area by the sea”).138 This is a
proper description of the geographical location of Capernaum – on the northern
shore of the Sea of Galilee, and in the Hula Valley, the lower region between
Upper Galilee and the Golan heights. When Origen associates it to the idea of
a spiritual, an animated, and a material human nature, his interpretation may
be entirely determined by his heresiological prejudices.139 A third example of
historical interest is when Heracleon explores why those who question John
the Baptist in John 1:19 are priests and Levites, specifically. Origen quotes
Heracleon saying that it was appropriate for servants of God to investigate John’s
activities, especially since he was of the Levite tribe.140 This comment is focused
on the historical circumstances of the events narrated in the text, and reveals
a basic knowledge of Jewish culture.141 In aggregate, these comments reveal an
expectation that the Johannine text contains historical data.
Several of Heracleon’s comments reveal an interest in identifying teachings in
the text that are applicable in the Christian movement of his own time. Most pro-
136 Origen, Comm. Jo. 13.19/115: Ἀλλὰ καὶ τὸ “ Ὅτι ἡ σωτηρία ἐκ τῶν Ἰουδαίων ἐστὶν”
⟨εἰρῆσθαι⟩ ἐπεὶ ἐν τῇ Ἰουδαίᾳ, φησίν, ἐγενήθη, ἀλλ’ οὐκ ἐν αὐτοῖς – οὐ γὰρ εἰς πάντας αὐτοὺς
εὐδόκησεν – καὶ ὅτι ἐξ ἐκείνου τοῦ ἔθνους ἐξῆλθεν ἡ σωτηρία καὶ ὁ λόγος εἰς τὴν οἰκουμένην
(ed. C. Blanc, Origène: Commentaire sur saint Jean, vol. 3: Livre XIII, SC 222 [Paris: Cerf, 1975],
92 = Heracleon, Quotation 22.3, in Berglund, Origen’s References to Heracleon, 214–17).
137 Wucherpfennig (Heracleon Philologus, 159, 275, 389) also seems to consider this refer-
ence to be a verbatim quotation, even though he also (276) presents it without quotation marks.
138 Origen, Comm. Jo. 13.60/416 = Heracleon, Summary 40.3 in Berglund, Origen’s Refer-
ences to Heracleon, 264–68. Cf. also Wucherpfennig, Heracleon Philologus, 250, 263, 277, where
this reference is taken to be a verbatim quotation.
139 Origen’s interpretation of this comment is taken for granted by Pagels, Gnostic Exegesis,
52, 56, 67, 85.
140 Origen, Comm. Jo. 6.21/115 = Heracleon, Quotation 5.6, in Berglund, Origen’s References
to Heracleon, 144–46.
141 Thomassen, “Heracleon,” 199, admits that in this case, Heracleon’s interest seems to
be simply factual, as opposed to focused on allegorical interpretations. Cf. Wucherpfennig,
Heracleon Philologus, 197–98.
nounced is this interest in his treatment of John 4:27–42, where Heracleon inter-
prets both Jesus’s remarks on sowing and reaping and the surrounding narrative
about Jesus’s interaction with the Samaritans in Sychar as relevant teachings for
Christian conversions of his own time. When he interprets the statement that the
fields are already white for harvest (λευκαί εἰσιν πρὸς θερισμόν) in John 4:35,
Heracleon brings in a similar theme from the Matthean teachings on sowing
and harvesting in chapter 13, and applies the interpretive key given in 13:38: the
field is the world, and the harvested grains are the children of the kingdom.142
Heracleon notes that at any given time, various parts of this harvest may be at
different stages of development: “Some were already ready, but some were about
to be, some are about to be, and some are already sowers themselves.”143 In this
remark, which is presented as a verbatim quotation,144 Heracleon identifies four
categories among those who are to be harvested into the Christian movement:
(1) those who were ready to be harvested already at the time described by the
Johannine narrative; (2) those who, at that time, still had a little while to go;
(3) those who, in Heracleon’s own time, still are undecided; and (4) those who,
in Heracleon’s time, have transitioned from being harvested to being sowers,
spreading the gospel in anticipation of new harvests. Thus, Heracleon takes one
of Jesus’s metaphorical sayings, and applies it to two different historical con-
texts – that of the historical Jesus and that of his own – revealing an expectation
that the text contains teachings of continuous relevance for the Christian
movement.
The same interest is exhibited in several other comments. For instance,
regarding the report in John 4:40–42, that many more of the Samaritans came to
faith when listening to Jesus himself, not only to the testimony of the Samaritan
woman, Heracleon remarks: “For people first come to trust the Savior after
being guided by people, but when they encounter his words, they no longer
believe solely based on human testimony, but also based on truth itself.”145 In
this quoted comment, Heracleon makes what the Johannine text states about a
particular situation – when Jesus visits Sychar – into a general principle: human
testimony is essential for conversion to the Christian faith, but should, for the
142 Heracleon’s use of Matthew has been previously studied by É. Massaux, Influence de
l’évangile de saint Matthieu sur la littérature chrétienne avant saint Irénée, ed. F. Neirynck, BETL
75 (Leuven: University Press, 1986), 429–31.
143 Origen, Comm. Jo. 13.40/271 (ed. Blanc, SC 222:176) = Heracleon, Quotation 32.3, in
Berglund, Origen’s References to Heracleon, 238–45: αἱ μὲν γὰρ ἤδη ἕτοιμοι ἦσαν, φησίν, αἱ δὲ
ἔμελλον, αἱ δὲ μέλλουσιν, αἱ δὲ ἐπισπείρονται ἤδη.
144 The statement appears in direct speech and is attributed to Heracleon with a single
φησίν (“he says”), inserted six words into the sentence, and is therefore considered a verbatim
quotation. Cf. the analysis in Berglund, Origen’s References to Heracleon, 238–45.
145 Origen, Comm. Jo. 13.53/363 (ed. Blanc, SC 222:234) = Heracleon, Quotation 39.2,
in Berglund, Origen’s References to Heracleon, 259–61: Oἱ γὰρ ἄνθρωποι τὸ μὲν πρῶτον ὑπὸ
ἀνθρώπων ὁδηγούμενοι πιστεύουσιν τῷ σωτῆρι, ἐπὰν δὲ ἐντύχωσιν τοῖς λόγοις αὐτοῦ, οὗτοι
οὐκέτι διὰ μόνην ἀνθρωπίνην μαρτυρίαν, ἀλλὰ δι’ αὐτὴν τὴν ἀλήθειαν πιστεύουσιν.
mature believer, be complemented by the words of Jesus himself. Presumably, it

is the Gospels that are the medium by which these words are transmitted to the
believers.146 By stating that these words are αὐτὴν τὴν ἀλήθειαν (“truth itself ”),
Heracleon seems to express an expectation he shares with Clement: the words
ascribed to Jesus in the Gospels are statements whose veracity is beyond doubt.
A third recurrent feature of Heracleon’s exegesis is his interest in finding
a deeper, symbolic meaning behind seemingly trivial pieces of information
in the narrative. When the Johannine narrator states that Jesus stays with the
Samaritans for two days, Heracleon is not content to stay within the historical
level of the text, but wants to interpret the two days as two eras in Christ’s earthly
existence:
“With (παρά) them,” and not “in (ἐν) them,” he remained for “two days” – either the
present age and the next one, which is at the wedding, or the period before his passion and
that after his passion, when he departed from them after being “with them,” causing many
more to turn to faith through his own words.147
Heracleon has two alternative suggestions for how the information that Jesus
stayed two days among the Samaritans can be understood metaphorically: the
two days represent either the distinction between Christ’s presence among his
believers on earth and – fulfilling the metaphor of the wedding banquet – in
heaven, or the distinction between Christ’s bodily existence before the cross and
his renewed existence after the resurrection. Either way, the seemingly trivial
remark is given an interpretation with significance for the history of salvation.
The same interest in metaphorical interpretation of narrative details is ex-
hibited in other passages.148 In one example, Heracleon speaks of the water jar
that the woman leaves with Jesus in John 4:28 as “the disposition capable of
receiving life.”149 In another, he reads the numbers “forty” and “six” in the es-
146 The suggestion by K. Koschorke (Die Polemik der Gnostiker gegen das kirchliche Chris-
tentum, NHS 12 [Leiden: Brill, 1978], 68) that Heracleon is here expressing a differentiation
between people with animated nature, who are in need of guidance, and people with a spiritual
nature, who can provide such guidance, presupposes that Heracleon subscribes to a soteriolog-
ical determinism similar to what is expressed in heresiological sources. Cf. Berglund, Origen’s
References to Heracleon, 332–38.
147 Origen, Comm. Jo. 13.52/349 (ed. Blanc, SC 222:226) = Heracleon, Quotation 38.1, in
Berglund, Origen’s References to Heracleon, 256–59: “Παρ’ αὐτοῖς” ἔμεινεν καὶ οὐκ “ἐν αὐτοῖς”
καὶ δύο ἡμέρας, ἤτοι τὸν ἐνεστῶτα αἰῶνα καὶ τὸν μέλλοντα τὸν ἐν γάμῳ, ἢ τὸν πρὸ τοῦ πάθους
αὐτοῦ χρόνον καὶ τὸν μετὰ τὸ πάθος, ὃν παρ’ αὐτοῖς ποιήσας πολλῷ πλείονας διὰ τοῦ ἰδίου
λόγου ἐπιστρέψας εἰς πίστιν ἐχωρίσθη ἀπ’ αὐτῶν.
148 Thomassen (“Heracleon,” 195–200) correctly argues that Heracleon’s exegetical interest
is by no means limited to the words spoken and acts performed by Jesus, but extends to the
narrative itself.
149 Origen, Comm. Jo. 13.31/187 (ed. Blanc, SC 222:134) = Summary 27.1 in Berglund,
Origen’s References to Heracleon, 228–30: Ὁ δὲ Ἡρακλέων τὴν ὑδρίαν τὴν δεκτικὴν ζωῆς
ὑπολαμβάνει εἶναι διάθεσιν …. The claim by Pagels (Gnostic Exegesis, 90) that only people with
a spiritual nature possess this capacity for receiving life is dependent on her mistaken claim that
timated construction time of the Jerusalem temple in John 2:20 as symbols of

“the unmixable” (ἀπρόσπλοκος) and of matter (ὕλη).150 A third example is when
he views the materials from which Jesus makes the whip, by which he drives out
the merchants from the temple, as symbols of the power and activity of the Holy
Spirit.151 A fourth is his suggestion that the travel itinerary of John 2:12, where
Jesus is said to have descended to Capernaum, is a metaphor for his descent from
the heavenly realm to the material.152
These three recurrent themes in Heracleon’s exegesis reveal three different
expectations of the Johannine Gospel: (1) that it provides historical information;
(2) that it offers Christian teachings of continuous relevance; and (3) that these
two aims are combined, so that even seemingly innocent historical data may re-
veal profound spiritual truth.153 His second expectation may be a superset of the
expectation exhibited in the Acts of John, that the Gospels provide patterns for
Christian discipleship, and of Clement’s use of Gospel material as a repository
of true statements. The peculiar combination of historiographical and educative
expectations is quite similar to Origen’s double characterization of the Gospels
as simultaneously accurate depictions of past events and Christian teachings.154
This similarity among adversaries suggests that similar combinations were
expected not only by Origen and his students, but also among other Christian
intellectuals. As in the case of Origen, Heracleon may be said to perceive the
Gospels as simultaneously participating in at least two genres: ancient his-
toriography and Christian proclamation.
Heracleon describes the Samaritan woman as having a spiritual nature. Cf. Wucherpfennig,
Heracleon Philologus, 339; Berglund, Origen’s References to Heracleon, 39–40.
150 Origen, Comm. Jo. 10.38/261 (ed. Blanc, SC 157:538–40) = Heracleon, Quotation
16.3, in Berglund, Origen’s References to Heracleon, 184–86: … καὶ τὸν ἓξ ἀριθμὸν εἰς τὴν
ὕλην, τουτέστιν τὸ πλάσμα, ἀναφέρει, τὸν δὲ τῶν τεσσεράκοντα, “ὃ τετρὰς ἐστίν,” φησίν, “ἡ
ἀπρόσπλοκος,” εἰς τὸ ἐμφύσημα καὶ τὸ ἐν τῷ ἐμφυσήματι σπέρμα. Presumably, Heracleon is
here referring to Christ having a material body in which three of the elements – fire, water, and
earth – were mixed, while the unmixable fourth element, air, was inbreathed.
151 Origen, Comm. Jo. 10.33/213 (ed. Blanc, SC 157:510) = Summary 13.6 in Berglund,
Origen’s References to Heracleon, 175–78: … καί φησι τὸ φραγέλλιον καὶ τὸ λίνον καὶ τὴν
σινδόνα, καὶ ὅσα τοιαῦτα, εἰκόνα τῆς δυνάμεως καὶ τῆς ἐνεργείας εἶναι τοῦ ἁγίου πνεύματος.
152 Origen, Comm. Jo. 10.11/48 (ed. Blanc, SC 157:414) = Summaries 11.1–2 in Berglund,
Origen’s References to Heracleon, 165–69: … καί φησι τὴν Καφαρναοὺμ σημαίνειν ταῦτα τὰ
ἔσχατα τοῦ κόσμου, ταῦτα τὰ ὑλικὰ εἰς ἃ κατῆλθεν.
153 Or, in the words of Thomassen, “Heracleon,” 199: “Heracleon evidently takes it for
granted that the gospel provides an account of historical events that is factually correct in all
details, while at the same time assuming that those events are to be read as an authored text
filed with underlying, symbolic meanings.” Or, as expressed by H. W. Attridge, “Heracleon and
John: Reassessment of an Early Christian Hermeneutical Debate,” in Biblical Interpretation:
History, Context, Reality, ed. C. Helmer, SymS 26 (Atlanta: SBL, 2005), 57–72, here 62: “People
and places in John’s Gospel can, according to Heracleon, have a multitude of meanings, not
only describing events in the life of Jesus, but also symbolizing cosmological and soteriological
truths.”
154 See above and Berglund, “Understanding Origen,” 203–14.
F. Conclusion
This paper has argued that the participation of the NT Gospels in ancient genres
should be discussed not only in terms of comparisons between them and other
ancient writings, but also in terms of the expectations exhibited in their early
reception. In view of an understanding of genre as a set of expectations shared
between author and reader, the ways in which ancient authors discuss, react to
or use the Gospels for their own purposes can inform us of how they perceived
the genre participation of these four early Christian narratives.
To that end, this paper has studied the reception of the Gospels in Heracleon’s
hypomnēmata on the Gospel of John, in Clement’s Exhortation to the Greeks,
and in §§ 18–86 of the apocryphal Acts of John. The Acts of John have been
demonstrated to reflect the patterns of discipleship established in the Gospels.
As one of the primary functions of biography is to provide an example for the
readers to follow, this focus on discipleship patterns is entirely consistent with the
Gospels participating in the genre of ancient biography. Clement’s Exhortation
has been revealed to treat the Gospels as a repository of true statements – the
clearest expression of a divine voice that permeates all of Christian scripture.
As a philosophical biography can be expected to provide some knowledge of
the philosophical teachings of its main subject, Clement’s expectation is not
incompatible with the genre of ancient biography. Heracleon’s hypomnēmata
has exhibited a more complex set of expectations on the Gospels, namely that
they are depictions of past events that not only contain Christian teachings
of continuous relevance for the Christian movement, but also themselves are
symbolically significant. Heracleon’s expectations, which are similar to those of
Origen, suggest that the Gospels may be described as participating in multiple
genres, each corresponding to a particular expectation.
Although we have noted that both the historiographical and educative expec-
tations are compatible with the genre of ancient biography, they do not exclude
other alternatives. The historiographical expectation is, naturally, most at home
with a historiographical genre, and the educative with a philosophical or theo-
logical treatise, but both are compatible also with the prophetic literature within
the OT. Heracleon’s expectation that narrative details are laden with symbolic
significance is more difficult to accommodate within historiographical and bio-
graphical genres, but may be connected to symbolic acts within Judeo-Christian
prophetic literature.155 Since readers may, potentially, misunderstand the genre
of a writing, it is not a necessity that the genre(s) of the Gospels accommodate
155 Cf. how H. Cancik (“Die Gattung Evangelium: Das Evangelium des Markus im Rahmen
der antiken Historiographie,” in Markus-Philologie: Historische, literargeschichtliche und stilis-
tische Untersuchungen zum zweiten Evangelium, ed. idem, WUNT 33 [Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck,
1984], 85–113) argues that the Gospels are “Weltliteratur” influenced by ancient historiography
and Jewish prophetic books, as well as βίοι.
all expectations exhibited in the reception, but if an expectation is widespread,

it is likely to have been perceived as a constituent part of the genre mix of the
Gospels.
The three writings examined in this paper constitute a diverse, but far from
comprehensive selection of writings that may reveal varying expectations on the
NT Gospels by early Christian readers. Even with this limited sample, the study
of the genre participation of ancient writings by way of their early reception has
proven to be a valid and valuable approach. A more thorough investigation, en-
compassing a wider selection of early Christian texts, can therefore be identified
as a desideratum for future scholarship.
What’s Form Got to Do with It?
Preliminaries on the Impact of Social Memory Theory
for the Study of Biblical Intertextuality
Sandra Huebenthal
After the writer has collected everything, or nearly everything, let the
writer first weave together from them a rough draft and make a text that is
still unadorned and disjointed. Then, after the writer has put it in proper
arrangement, let the writer bring in beauty, give it a touch of style, shape
it and bring it to order.1 Lucian of Samosata, Hist. conscr. 48
Lucian’s ideas about writing history, used in Mathew D. C. Larsen’s inspiring
study Gospels before the Book, display a process quite familiar to the work of
researchers. Our work, too, is an ongoing process that comes with lots of un-
finished notes and unpolished ideas which are, however, necessary to stimulate
the scholarly discussion and advance scientific progress. Research conferences
mainly consist of presentations of work-in-progress exhibiting both of these
characteristics: unfinished and unpolished. In a way, this is unavoidable given
the fact that scholarly research is rarely about final results, but all the more about
processes and thinking together. Since one never walks alone on these paths,
I feel encouraged to share some of my preliminary thoughts and unfinished notes
on the impact of social memory theory for the study of biblical intertextuality,
and to invite my scholarly travel companions to think together.
In recent years of intensive research in the area of a social memory theo-
retical framework for reading biblical texts, my impression has become stronger
that two areas which are researched independently, i. e., (biblical) intertextuality
and social memory theory, are indeed closely connected: intertextuality can be
understood as a phenomenon of cultural memory and should hence be inves-
tigated in a wider context of oral culture. Although references to cultural memory
usually surface as text-text-relations and are thus investigated by biblical scholars
1 Καὶ ἐπειδὰν ἀθροίσῃ ἅπαντα ἢ τὰ πλεῖστα, πρῶτα μὲν ὑπόμνημά τι συνυφαινέτω αὐτῶν
καὶ σῶμα ποιείτω ἀκαλλὲς ἔτι καὶ ἀδιάρθρωτον· εἶτα ἐπιθεὶς τὴν τάξιν ἐπαγέτω τὸ κάλλος καὶ
χρωννύτω τῇ λέξει καὶ σχηματιζέτω καὶ ῥυθμιζέτω (text K. Kilburn, Lucian, vol. 6, LCL 430
[Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1959], 60; trans. M. D. C. Larsen, Gospels before
the Book [New York: Oxford University Press, 2018], 107).
146 Sandra Huebenthal
as a feature of text, insights of social memory theory and media history force us
to look closer and dig deeper.
In the following preliminaries, I will share first ideas of what is designed to be
a larger project aimed at a new perspective on the field. My starting point is the
question what intertextuality is actually about (§A), how it is typically researched
in NT exegesis and what can be said about this approach on the basis of the
insights of social memory theory and media history (§B). I will then draft a first
outline of a different approach to intertextuality and what this new perspective
might imply for reading early Christian texts (§C). The test drills and probing
will be undertaken with the example of Isaiah in the different strands of NT
traditions and I will close my notes with a brief outlook on possible next steps to
continue the research (§D).
A. Approaching the Issue: Intertextuality

and Its Application in Biblical Scholarship
A simple definition of intertextuality is that it describes and reflects the occur-

rence of texts in other texts. This broad definition covers all kinds of occurrences
like (a) materialistic occurrence (a book or scroll itself is mentioned; e. g.,
Luke 4:17; Acts 8:28), (b) motifs (a motif from an another text emerges in a
text; e. g., Luke 4:25–27; Rev 14:5; Mark 12:1–12), (c) the structure of a text (a
text is structured with recourse to another; e. g., John 1:1), or (d) a particular
genre (particular genre is used; e. g., Matt 1:1–18). The most common form of
intertextuality is, however, the occurrence of a clearly recognizable sequence
or passage of one text in another (e. g., Luke 4:18–19; Acts 8:32–33). Usually
the length and recognizability of the character string in question is essential
for determining whether this occurrence is manifest, latent, or diffuse, and the
intertextual disposition is called quotation (= manifest), allusion (= latent) or
echo (= diffuse) as it is illustrated in Figure 1.2
In biblical scholarship most intertextual analyses address the occurrence of
such clearly recognizable sequences of one text in another. Biblical scholarship
in general and NT exegesis in particular is – or at last has been for quite some
time – mostly interested in unambiguous allusions and quotations. There is a
more refined taxonomy for quotations that distinguishes quotations with or
without reference (mentioning the source of the quotation) and with or without
fulfillment formula. These differences, too, can be laid out in a chart (Figure 2).
The categories of the table do not imply, however, that things are so clear-cut
and easy in the texts themselves. Quite the contrary, very often not all the details
2 Cf. S. Huebenthal, Transformation und Aktualisierung: Zur Rezeption von Sach 9–14 im

Neuen Testament, SBB 57 (Stuttgart: Katholisches Bibelwerk, 2006), 51.
What’s Form Got to Do with It? 147
Intertextual Disposition /
Type of Reference
Quote Allusion Echo

manifest presence latent presence diffuse presence
of hypotext of hypotext of hypotext
marked unmarked marked unmarked
+ Recognizability –
Figure 1: Different types of intertextual dispositions as commonly used in
biblical exegesis
Without fulfillment formula Fulfillment formula

(e. g., ἵνα πληρωθῇ)
With reference Rom 10:16 Matt 8:17
(γέγραπται + source, e. g., ἡ Luke 22:27
γραφή, ταῖς γραφαῖς or specific John 12:38
source)
Without reference Rom 15:21
Acts 8:32–33
1 Pet 2:22–25
Figure 2: Types of marked and unmarked quotes (here, Isaiah 53 in the NT)
provided in a NT quotation with reference and fulfillment formula are correct.

A prime example is the opening quotation in Mark 1:2–3: it does not have a
proper fulfillment scheme, but an unambiguous reference to the prophet Isai-
ah. The problem is, however, that this quotation does not originate from Isaiah
alone but is in fact a conflation of Isa 40:3, Mal 3:1, and Exod 23:20.
The seemingly flawed quotation in Mark 1:2–3 is a good point to start an
inquiry how intertextuality is very often dealt with in biblical scholarship. Fueled
by historical-critical exegesis and its predominant focus on the production of the
biblical texts, one of the most important questions has been the one about the
quotation’s Vorlage. What kind of a text and manuscript of the OT did the NT
author have when he (the default assumption is that biblical authors are male)
composed his text?
The quest for the Vorlage is interesting in several ways. It not only answers
questions about the influence on the NT text, but also deepens the knowledge
about OT textual traditions and the familiarity of the NT author with his
tradition. Investigating in this line of thought kills several birds with one stone:
one learns both about OT and NT textual traditions and how well an author
was versed in his own tradition, even down to the question what manuscript he
might have used. Flawed quotations like Mark 1:2–3 could be explained either
by a flawed Vorlage, by an early Christian testimonium (a collection of quotations
with a particular purpose), or simply by the author quoting from memory.
This approach also explains another trend in intertextual studies of the
historical-critical type: they usually only deal with individual quotations and
tend to treat them as singularities, not as windows from one text into the other.
In practice this means that researchers very often do not take into account the
context of the intertextual reference in question and investigate how this context
might add to its meaning, but simply regard the quote as it occurs.
When one starts with the assumptions that quoting more or less equals proof-
texting and that quotations were mainly used to defend particular dogmatic
positions, this does indeed make sense. It makes even more sense when one
assumes the existence of testimonia consisting of a selection of quotations for
exactly this purpose. Here we encounter one of the major trends in a particular
type of intertextual investigation: it focuses on production and is interested in
a quotation’s Vorlage and the purpose of its use in a particular situation – very
often thought of as a defensive one that required a certain theological proof text.
Having this in mind, it is not surprising that in many cases, intertextuality
ran the risk of becoming a new guise for old questions about tradition, motifs,
and influence. The direction of the investigation remains, as Thomas R. Hatina
has already put it twenty years ago,3 diachronic and primarily concerned with
influence. What texts and traditions did the author know? What theological con-
cepts did he use? When did particular concepts and ideas come into existence
and how were they handed down? An intertextual study of that type can explain
whether a particular author did or did not, maybe even could not yet know a
particular tradition. Mark, for instance, has for a long time been considered to
be either unaware of post-resurrection appearance narratives or to have delib-
erately suppressed them. Other authors like Polycarp some generations later
who did not quote from the OT were considered insufficiently familiar with it.4
The attempt to reconstruct a particular author’s knowledge of a particular text
or tradition is not problematic as such, since intertextuality is also an indicator
of the distribution of traditions and texts. It should not, however, be the only
indicator of an early Christian author’s fluency in the biblical tradition, or used
for speculations about whether he came from a Jewish or Gentile background.
The example of Polycarp’s allegedly limited knowledge of the OT tends to ignore
the context and pragmatics of the letter in question. Even though some things
had changed in Philippi since Paul’s times, it still was a predominantly Gentile
group and hence there was little benefit from quoting the OT. The common
3 T. R. Hatina, “Intertextuality and Historical Criticism in New Testament Studies: Is There
a Relationship?,” BibInt 7 (1999): 28–43.
4 See, e. g. C. Nielsen, “Polycarp, Paul and the Scriptures,” AThR 27 (1965): 199–215.
frame of reference for Polycarp and the Philippians was the Apostle Paul as the
founder of the communities and their collective memory about him and that
time. Referring to those days, Polycarp reminds the Philippians of their history
and shared roots, which is much more useful for his argument than a chain of
OT quotations.
The historical-critical or production-oriented approach to the occurrence
of texts in other texts is not the only way to investigate intertextual relations.
The fact that is has been the most common way in biblical scholarship does not
mean that it is the only or the best way to do it. In fact, it does not reflect what
intertextuality, a literary concept formed in post-structuralism, really is about.
“The historical critic, especially,” Hatina argues, “is primarily concerned with the
task of identifying written pre-texts and describing their function in new literary
contexts. The propensity toward cause and effect structures and investigation is
clearly contrary to the poststructuralist notion of ‘text’ and ‘intertext.’”5 Taken
seriously, intertextuality is not a game of detecting sources and investigating past
traditions, but the recipient himself becomes a participant in the tradition. Seen
this way, intertextuality is less a diachronic concept to track down influence, but
a rather a synchronic enterprise that investigates relations between texts.
Since the literary turn and its shift in attention from production to reception,
reader- or reception-oriented studies focusing on the receiving end and inves-
tigating how a particular text is or could be received by real or potential readers
became more widespread in biblical scholarship. This approach is less about
intention than about impact, and the whole range of wirkungsgeschichtliche and
rezeptionsgeschichtliche Studien adds to this field. A third approach to inter-
textuality finally focuses on the text itself and investigates text-text-relations
synchronically with regard to their literary and social context and domains. This
approach does usually not construct authors and readers, but rather focuses on
texts, how intertextual references change their meaning (which works both for
hyper- and hypotext) and how this affects the understanding and interpretation
of biblical texts.6 My own work the area of social memory theory and its con-
tribution to the understanding of early Christian identity formation processes
also falls into that category.
The introduction of intertextuality to biblical studies is to be welcomed, but
nevertheless has some dangers. Like all new hermeneutical and methodological
approaches, intertextuality, too, has been developed further when it was intro-
duced to biblical scholarship and not all the developments were steps forward.
In fact, in many contributions to the field, “intertextuality” was adopted as a
fancy buzzword to resell old ideas. Very often, what is termed “intertextuality”
5 Hatina, “Intertextuality and Historical Criticism,” 35.
6 Which does not mean that Umberto Eco’s model reader or Wolfgang Iser’s implied reader
or something alike will not be constructed in these approaches. They do, however, remain with-
in the boundaries of the text and are not projected into the extra-textual world.
is nothing else than traditional and old-fashioned Motivkritik or Traditionskritik

dealing with dependence and influence. It is easy to see that this is not what the
post-structuralist idea of intertextuality is about.
The criticism could even go a step further; perhaps historical-critical
scholarship with its focus on production is not solely to blame. Intertextuality
itself is a concept from the post-Gutenberg era, for it investigates relations of
written texts, and this rings especially with historical-critical presuppositions.
To put it with Werner H. Kelber, “Print was the medium in which modern
biblical scholarship was born and from which it has acquired its formative
methodological tools, exegetical conventions, and intellectual posture.”7 On
average, historical-critical scholarship does not sufficiently consider orality,
performance, and the pluriformity of manuscripts before the invention of
Gutenberg’s press. Identical manuscripts did not exist prior to the 15th century,
thus investigating which version of the text a NT author has used is not only
very speculative but also hermeneutically highly problematic: intertextuality as
used by many NT scholars does not correct for biases about text that can only
exist in the wake of Gutenberg’s revolution. The bias extends not only to the
tendency to dismiss orality (or to distort it by “textualizing” it), but also to the
tendency to treat written texts as if they were stereographically printed copies,
instead of hand-copied and unique items that capture hermeneutical and trans-
missional moments.8 In other words: “the typographic medium that has been a
constitutive factor in the formation of modern biblical scholarship … has largely
remained unacknowledged.”9
This problem has to be seen in its greater context. The criticism that historical-
critical scholarship has – or at least had – a tendency to focus one-sidedly on
written manuscripts and to neglect the oral culture from which the biblical texts
originate, is not new. It has been directed to historical Jesus research for quite
some time,10 but it is also an issue for intertextuality in its different modes of
investigating text-text-relationships. Regardless which of the approaches is used,
historical-critical methods tend to focus on written texts, written pre-stages or
sources and often even treat presumed oral sources like stable written texts,
7 W. H. Kelber, “The ‘Gutenberg Galaxy’ and the Historical Study of the New Testament,”
Oral History Journal of South Africa 5/2 (2017): 1–16, 3.
8 A good counter-example to this trend is G. V. Allen’s doctoral thesis, The Book of Reve-
lation and Early Jewish Textual Culture, SNTSMS 168 (Cambridge: Cambridge University
Press, 2017).
9 Kelber, “Gutenberg Galaxy” 6.
10 A broader discussion of this problem was initiated by C. Keith, “Memory and Authen-
ticity: Jesus Tradition and What Really Happened,” ZNW 102 (2011): 155–77. For a more
detailed exchange of arguments cf. the contributions in C. Keith and A. Le Donne, eds., Jesus,
Criteria, and the Demise of Authenticity (London: T&T Clark, 2012). A helpful brief overview
of the arguments is provided in the first chapter of M. J. Kok, The Gospel on the Margins: The
Reception of Mark in the Second Century (Minneapolis: Fortress, 2015), 25–26.
underestimating their oral environment, the fluidity of manuscripts and of the

general idea of originality and the equiprimordiality of speech acts.11
It is only after the invention of the printing press that identical copies of texts
were available and soon became the standard – with profound consequences for
the study of the Bible:
As more and more texts were standardized, something suggested itself which in that form
had never existed before: the standard text. … As the print edition of the Greek New Tes-
tament, mechanically constructed and copied in steadily growing numbers, flourished in
terms of prestige and influence, it came to convey the impression that it was the one and
only text.12
The consequences of this development still govern much of the scholarly read-
ing:
Based on this concept of the textual archetype, a categorical thinking in terms of origi-
nality versus derivativeness, and primary versus secondary textual status penetrated the
scholarly thinking of New Testament studies. To this day it provided the rationale for the
construction of the critical editions, the stemmatological model of text criticism, the con-
cept of early Jesus tradition, and the Quest of the historical Jesus sayings.13
The quest for a quote’s Vorlage links up with this problem, as it tends to operate
within the same mindset. The not-infrequent line of argument is that a faulty
quotation is the result of a flawed Vorlage or the author’s poor recollection. In a
recent contribution, Andrew Montanaro “proposes that the peculiarities of the
OT quotations in John’s Gospel can be described in terms of memory variants,
ultimately showing that John was recalling the OT from memory.”14 His paper
is a typical example of the attempt to apply memory theory to the area of inter-
textuality, production of Gospels, and handing down of traditions, whilst work-
11 The term “equiprimordial” is the literal translation of Heidegger’s gleichursprünglich and

has been introduced to biblical scholarship by W. H. Kelber. In his essay “Die Anfangsprozesse
der Verschriftlichung im Frühchristentum,” ANRW 2/26.1 (1992): 1–63, he says with reference
to A. B. Lord, Singer of Tales, ed. S. A. Mitchell and G. Nagy, 2nd ed., Harvard Studies in Com-
parative Literature 25 (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2000), “that concepts such
as ‘Urtext’ or ‘Urwort’ do not conform to the reality of oral composition” (16), and concludes:
“we, as the ones used to assuming one unique origin, in case we seriously want to put ourselves
in the position of Jesus’s linguistic reality, have to think through Heidegger’s concept of ‘equi
primordiality.’ Each of Jesus’s spoken words was ‘equiprimordial’ to his other spoken words. If
one word was proclaimed three times, these words were not three versions of the one ‘Urwort,’
but three ‘primordial’ proclamations. Only scribality provided the opportunity to distinguish
between a primary text and secondary versions” (17, my translation). See also W. H. Kelber,
“The Works of Memory: Christian Origins and MnemoHistory – A Response,” in Memory,
Tradition, and Text: Uses of the Past in Early Christianity, ed. A. Kirk and T. Thatcher, SemeiaSt
52 (Atlanta: SBL, 2005), 221–48, 237.
12 Kelber, “Gutenberg Galaxy,” 9 (emphasis original).
13 Kelber, “Gutenberg Galaxy,” 10 (emphasis original).
14 A. Montanaro, “The Use of Memory in the Old Testament Quotations in John’s Gospel,”
NovT 59 (2017): 147–70, 148.
ing with the assumption of stable OT traditions that one can sharply differentiate
from NT usages. Stating that “half of the Old Testament quotations in John’s
Gospel vary from their source texts,”15 Montanaro insinuates that these source
texts are available for comparison, which is not the case. The idea of assigning the
differences between the source and the quotation to the NT author and his men-
tal capacity (within the average fault tolerance of human memory that is widely
researched) is missing the point, because it works from the wrong assumptions.
It is not only human memory that is fluid, but also the textual tradition from the
OT.16 The possibility that the quote has been deliberately altered is usually not
even considered, although this scenario is much more likely than the other two,
when one accepts that different rules apply in oral societies: “Scripture” (γραφή)
or “written” (γέγραπται) indicates neither “carved in stone,” nor that the written
sources are completely stable.
What makes things even more difficult is the fact that the NT traditions – be
they oral or written – are not stable either, as the discipline has recently been
reminded of by Matthew Larsen in his study Gospels before the Book. On the
background of a profound knowledge of text production and reception in
antiquity, especially the 1st c. CE, Larsen shows that even what we receive as
published books due to our own standards must be understood differently in
their original first- and second-century contexts: “One cannot distinguish
between the fundamental tools of traditional historical criticism of the Gospels
such as redaction, source, and textual criticism without ideas like book, author,
and publication. Yet all such ideas are foreign to the earliest centuries of the
Common Era.”17 The result of his study is a confirmation of what recent textual
criticism has been preaching to the scholarly congregation for quite some time
now: oral and written texts are subject to much greater variety than the standard
historical-critical position would tolerate, and this is not the exception, but the
rule. Larsen’s focus on hypomnēmata as a rather fluid genre on the transition
from oral to written bearing more the characteristics of the former than the latter
takes the issue one step further.18 The discussion of what it might imply to under-
stand Mark’s Gospel along with the patristic descriptions of it as hypomnēma is
only beginning and has the potential to shatter the historical-critical consensus
about Mark from a quite unexpected angle.
15 Montanaro, “Use of Memory,” 147.

16 This point has already been driven home for the Qumran texts by E. Ulrich, The Dead Sea
Scrolls and the Origins of the Bible, SDSSRL (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans; Leiden: Brill, 1999).
18 For an initial idea of hypomnēmata as a particular textual form, cf. Larsen, Gospel be-
fore the Book, 107: “Hypomnēmata lack ‘order’ (taxis) and are unfinished, unpolished, and
uncorrected. It is one of their characteristics, and not a flaw. Adding order to notes is an integral
part of turning them into polished pieces of writing.” Further, ibid., 112: “Hypomnēmata were
textual objects with a specific purpose. At their root, they are about remembering the already
known, not informing about the not yet known.”
The idea of a “second orality” was a first step into the right direction but it
is not enough for investigating what goes on behind the scenes of intertextual
references. Our concepts need to be revised as well. Testimonia, one of the sug-
gested solutions for seemingly flawed quotations like the one in Mark 1:2–3,
is one of them. Even if testimonia existed in Mark’s days, we would not know
what purpose they served in an oral culture. The assumption that they were
collections of proof-texts or arguments may indeed reflect the ideas of later
generations and their theological issues which were projected back in time.
In addition, we might once more be dealing with the problem of applying the
standards of the Gutenberg era to antiquity. In the early days, testimonia – if
they existed – might have been nothing more than aide-mémoire and could
have played a variety of different roles in oral discourses. Whether they indeed
existed in NT times is highly debatable. The first testimonia we can safely lay
our hands on are as late as Cyprian of Carthage which brings us into the first
half of the third century and at least one hundred years away from the NT
authors. From a social memory point of view, inventory-taking and methodical
presentation of important traditions – key pieces of what the early Christians
have established as new frames for identity construction – of a manageable
size is not surprising, thus the genre of testimonia fits very well into that later
period.19
B. Theorizing about a Social Memory

Theoretical Approach to Intertextuality
My suggestion is to broaden the scope and perceive intertextuality in the greater

picture of cultural memory where it is one particular way of interacting with
given cultural frames. With regard to media-theoretical or media-historical con-
siderations this might be a more precise way to handle the concept and avoid the
assumption of stable and unalterable traditions and texts prior to the Gutenberg
Bible.
Let me present a first set of ideas of what changes when intertextuality is
seen and used in the broader framework of social memory theory (kulturwis-
19 Cf. P. Jay, “Jesaja,” RAC 17 (1996): 764–821. Jay terms the testimonia “eine Art Bestands-
aufnahme u. methodische Darstellung der Schriftzitate …, die im 3. Jh. im Dienste des christl.
Glaubens klassisch geworden waren. … Cyprians Testimonia bestätigen, daß J. in der Zeit, in
der systematische J.kommentare aufzutreten beginnen, als messianische Prophet par excellence
galt, der Christus ebenso wie die Verwerfung Israels und das Heil der Heidenvölker voraus-
gesagt hat” (803–5). H. Haag (“Der Gottesknecht bei Deuterojesaja im Verständnis der Alten
Kirche,” FZPhTh 31 [1984]: 343–77), however, concludes that it is Cyprian who compiles “jene
Blütenlese von Bibelstellen, die er für die Auseinandersetzung mit den Juden und für die Chris-
tologie” (368), which seems to imply a creative act on part of Cyprian, not simply a putting
together of traditions handed down to him.
senschaftliche Gedächtnistheorie).20 I begin with Tom Hatina’s insight that by

taking intertextuality seriously, the recipient himself becomes a participant in
the tradition. Individuals or groups make use of intertextuality with the purpose
of orientation, expression or creating a sense of familiarity and belonging. That
is fairly close to what social memory theory is about.
The overall goals of investigating intertextual references from a social mem-
ory perspective are: (a) to analyze how tradition and identity are negotiated
and adapted to new situations, (b) to investigate how cultural memory (or in
a more Halbwachsian way of phrasing it: social and cultural frames) is used to
create meaning, and (c) to ascertain how both change in the course of time (by
taking intertextual dispositions as uses of cultural frames as indicators for these
processes). In short: the goal of the inquiry is to find out more about early Chris-
tian identity formation.
Intertextuality from a social memory perspective does not wonder about
the fluency of particular NT and early Christian authors in their tradition (no
mirror-reading), but analyzes the presence (and absence!) of intertextual dis-
positions with regard to the pragmatics of the book in question. The alleged
lack of particular references very often turns out to be due to the genre, target
audience or pragmatics of a given text. There is little point for someone like
Paul to use the OT for making a point to a Gentile audience, as long he is not
confronted with an argument building upon Scripture, as is the case, e. g., in
Galatians.
In general, intertextuality seen from a social memory perspective broadens
the scope and moves from mere text-text-relations to the reception of antecedent
traditions which are in a broader sense related to the medium “text.” We are still
dealing with text, but with texts seen in a broader cultural context. The main
difference is that a social memory perspective on intertextuality does not look at
isolated incidents or occurrences of Scripture in individual NT pericopae, but at
larger portions of both hyper- and hypotext. One of the basic assumptions both
for hermeneutics and method is that no text and no intertextual disposition is
an island, but has to be considered both in its socio-cultural and literary context.
Thus the quotes of Isaiah in Mark 1:2–3, 4:12, 7:6–7, and 11:17 are not treated
individually, but as connected phenomena within the use of Isaiah as a cultural
frame in Mark.
For the socio-cultural context this implies awareness of an extended uni-
verse of texts and contexts in the background. Each cultural utterance, whether
oral, textual, or materialistic, has to be seen in relation to its cultural context
and engages with its religious and socio-cultural framework. In social memory
20 For a brief survey of the differences in terminology and theoretical background of the
two, see S. Huebenthal, “Social and Cultural Memory in Biblical Exegesis: The Quest for an Ad-
equate Application,” in Cultural Memory in Biblical Exegesis, ed. P. Carstens, T. B. Hasselbalch,
and N. P. Lemche, PHSC 17 (Piscataway, NJ: Gorgias Press, 2012), 171–216, 177–79.
theory this is called “cultural memory.” Although cultural memory also consists
of texts, it is never only a textual entity, but the whole of tradition, ritual, text,
etc. referred to in a given social context. It is important to keep in mind that
first-century cultural memory and socio-cultural frames change and differ from
those of our own times. It might seem to be a commonplace, but the danger
that the frames and questions of the researcher are injected into the texts is dis-
turbingly real.21
For the literary context this implies that entire books have to be considered
both as hyper- and hypotexts when investigating intertextual relationships. The
literary context of the entire biblical book is a text’s context, not just the pericope
or a reconstructed pre-stage of a particular text. The tendency to neglect literary
contexts has been one of the blind spots of historical-critical exegesis. On the
working level this means a thorough synchronic analysis of the entire text. Inter-
textuality is not about counting the quotes and allusions, but about how a text
engages with another text. This means moving beyond the investigation of the
individual reference the individual verse from Scripture, and broadening the
focus to further points of connectivity between the two texts in question, e. g.,
further allusions, motifs, etc.22
The fluidity of tradition in an oral setting also affects the “form” of inter-
textual relations. While form-critical analyses are keen on tracing the sources of
intertextual relations in order to find out more about the route a tradition has
taken, they have difficulties with altered traditions and quotes that cannot be
safely traced back to a clear source or are significantly different from it. While
the standard assumption of form-critical approaches to this phenomenon is a
flawed Vorlage, the use of a (equally flawed or altered) testimonium, or the author
quoting for memory, the social memory theoretical approach to intertextuality
takes a different turn. Understanding intertextuality as a phenomenon of making
21 This danger is lurking in almost all contexts of reading the Bible and all areas of exegetical
research. Cf. the general observations of J. S. Kloppenborg, “Disciplined Exaggeration: The
Heuristics of Comparison in Biblical Studies,” NovT 59 (2017): 390–414; cf. also the assumption
of M. W. Holmes, “Dating the Martyrdom of Polcarp,” EC 9 (2018): 181–200, 196: “Many
(probably most) histories of the New Testament canon share a common weakness, namely a
teleological perspective. They conceptualize the story of the New Testament canon from the
perspective of its outcome: they know how the story ends and work from there back to its
beginning. This leads to the tracing of a single line of development as though it were somehow
‘natural’ and inevitable, and no notice is taken of the other possible directions in which the
whole process might have gone”; or the conclusion of T. R. Hatina, “Memory and Method:
Theorizing John’s Mnemonic Use of Scripture,” in Biblical Interpretation in Early Christian
Gospels, vol. 4: The Gospel of John, ed. idem, LNTS 613 (London: T&T Clark, 2020), 219–36: “In
many cases, practitioners of diachronic approaches fail to advance a theory of transmission or
simply assume one that is consistent with their emic framework.”
22 Cf. S. Huebenthal, “Wie kommen Schafe und Rinder in den Tempel? Die ‘Tempelaktion’
(Joh 2,13–22) in kanonisch-intertextueller Lektüre,” in Intertextualität: Perspektiven auf ein
interdisziplinäres Arbeitsfeld, ed. K. Herrmann and S. Huebenthal (Aachen: Shaker, 2007),
69–81.
sense within given cultural frames, it expects a creative use of this tradition and
can thus account for changes. This creative approach is an important part of the
formation of identity by means of dealing with cultural frames. If the cultural
frames and pattern are used to make sense of new experiences, these new experi-
ences will over time become part of a group’s tradition – and in turn change
the initial frame. It is not surprising that a change in understanding affects the
wording of the frame – in our case a quote from Scripture. Such a change of
wording is especially to be expected in oral societies with a less closed concept
even of written texts, and is of great heuristic value.
Approaching intertextuality from a social memory perspective, it could fur-
ther be expected that alterations of the tradition in quotes from Israel’s Scrip-
tures (i. e., changes in wording, conflation of quotes, reading motives against
the grain or creative new combinations of different motifs) happen more
frequently in externalizations from collective memories than remnants from
social memory. Building on the findings of Maurice Halbwachs, it makes sense
to assume that the fabrication of new frames for understanding in collective
memory also alters the tradition to which they refer. Thus the question about
the form of a particular intertextual reference and whether it deviates from its
source is only the beginning and calls for further explanations. Determining
the form of an intertextual relation says as little about its meaning as deter-
mining the genre of a particular text. It can, however, be a point of departure
for further explanations.
Intertextuality from a social memory perspective finally assumes a different
pragmatics. It does not think in categories of promise/fulfillment, but sees the
use of the fulfillment-language as a strategy to inscribe or locate a particular
interpretation in an existing tradition, and thus as a strategy to become part of
this tradition. This refers both to traditions with canonical or quasi-canonical
status (as it is the case for Israel’s Scriptures in Second Temple Judaism) and
later to early Christian texts referring back to NT text (as it is the case for some
of the later apocrypha). Tobias Nicklas has recently demonstrated this strategy
convincingly for the Acts of Titus.23 The formula “this happened to fulfill the
Scripture” is thus an attempt to place or locate one’s experience and ideas in the
existing tradition. Depending on the medium of communication, the temporal
distance to the events or experience or the pragmatics of a particular text, this
dealing with traditions has different phases and faces.
The huge benefit of analyzing intertextuality from a social memory perspec-
tive is that, because of its hermeneutical foundations which include sensitivity to
both orality and changing contexts, it is much more flexible than other concepts.
The recourse to previous traditions necessarily changes over time and this change
23 T. Nicklas, “Die Akten des Titus: Rezeption ‘apostolischer’ Schriften und Entwicklung
antik-christlicher ‘Erinnerungslandschaften,’” EC 8 (2017): 458–80.
must be taken into consideration. In social memory theory, the ever-changing

temporal horizon of the group is accounted for: the temporal (and local) distance
of early Christian groups to the foundational events of Christianity almost nec-
essarily implies alterations of terms, concepts, and contexts. Εὐαγγέλιον, to use
an obvious example, has a different meaning in the times of Paul, Mark, John,
Justin, Marcion, and Origen. While Paul would have understood it as the living
proclamation (and rather used it as a verb), Mark with his written εὐαγγέλιον
paves the way for a religious textual genre, and the reception of Mark by the later
Synoptics as well as the Gospel-titles in the second century bear witness to this
development.
This also means that the same text-text-relation, to use intertextual terminol-
ogy, might denote different things in different texts and times. As all cats look
alike in the dark, from the temporal distance of roughly two thousand years the
use of the Old Testament in the New looks very much alike for the different
books. A closer look at the texts, however, reveals that this is not the case and that
there were significant changes of meaning within a span of only a few decades.
Especially with a growing temporal distance from the foundational events and
texts reflecting their meaning for the early groups of Jesus followers, some ideas
have already become traditions themselves. This means that what Paul or Mark
were still struggling with might have become consensus and be referred to as
tradition only a few decades later. Traces of this development can be found in the
latest writings of the NT, and will become manifest in post-NT times.
C. Before the Floating Gap:

Isaiah as a Cultural Frame in New Testament Texts
My first case for testing these theoretical assumptions was Isaiah and I began
my research with an analysis how the prophet and his book feature in Mark’s
Gospel.24 Does Mark use Isaiah for proof-texting?25 Does he use Isaiah’s theo-
logical themes and schemes? How much of Isaiah does he use at all? And, finally,
how does Isaiah emerge on the surface of his Gospel?
24 S. Huebenthal, “The Gospel of Mark,” in Jesus Traditions in the First Three Centuries,
vol. 1: Gospel Literature and Additions to Gospel Literature, ed. C. Keith, H. K. Bond, C. Jacobi,
and J. Schröter (London: T&T Clark, 2019), 41–72; S. Huebenthal, “Kollektives Gedächtnis,
Kulturelle Rahmen und das Markusevangelium,” in Reading the Gospel of Mark in the Twenty-
First Century: Method and Meaning, ed. G. Van Oyen, BETL 301 (Leuven: Peeters 2019),
217–50; S. Huebenthal, “Framing Jesus and Understanding Ourselves: Isaiah in Mark’s Gospel
and Beyond,” in Creative Fidelity, Faithful Creativity: The Reception of Jewish Scripture in Early
Judaism and Christianity, ed. M. A. Daise and D. Hartmann (Leiden: Brill [forthcoming]).
25 For reasons of convenience, I continue to use the traditional view of a one tangible author
behind this text without making a claim that this is what happened behind the scenes of this
text.
1. The Reception of Isaiah in Mark

A thorough investigation of the occurrence of Isaiah in Mark has brought me to
the conclusion that the beginning of the Gospel of Jesus anointed Son of God,26
as it is written in Isaiah, the prophet is not just a falsely ascribed quotation or
a composition principle, but the most important frame the Gospel offers to
understand Jesus. The text depicts Jesus as the anointed Son of God, God’s final
eschatological messenger who proclaims the arrival of God’s reign as it was
already prophesied in Isaiah and accompanied by the circumstances anticipated
there: the eyes of the blind are opened, the ears of the deaf are first stopped, then
unstopped, the lame walk and there is shouting for joy, because the tongue of the
dumb is loosened. The two most prominent categories or titles for understand-
ing Jesus in the Gospel’s opening, χριστός and υἱὸς τοῦ θεοῦ, are also the two
categories of reception that offer most connectivity for non-Jewish audiences.
The Gospel leaves no doubt, however, that they must be read in the light of
and through the prophecy of Isaiah. Mark’s proclamation of Jesus is framed in
categories of and with regard to the prophet Isaiah.
Making visible the Isaian frames in Mark’s Gospel helps to understand how
the text itself provides frames for understanding Jesus. Read as an externaliza-
tion of collective memory and thus placed between the generational gap and
the floating gap, the Gospel according to Mark not only negotiates different
frames, but by suggesting a particular way to make sense of the Jesus event it
allows for collective identity constructions on that basis.27 This does not exclude
the possibility of a different perception of Jesus, e. g., as a returned Moses or
Elijah (redivivus). It is indeed possible to understand Jesus as a prophet, Son of
David or royal aspirant, but the people behind Mark’s Gospel express a different
perception: at this time, in this place and in this text Jesus is understood to be the
anointed Son of God according to Isaiah’s prophecy.
26 The text-critical question whether υἱοῦ θεοῦ was part of the original text is debated as
the witnesses allow for both scenarios. C. C. Black (“Mark as Historian of God’s Kingdom,”
CBQ 71 [2009]: 64–83) notes: “Adjudicating the text-critical problem in Mark 1:1, the jury
remains out. When it will return with a generally acceptable verdict is anyone’s guess” (65). In
one of the most recent contributions to the question, T. Wasserman (“The ‘Son of God’ Was
in the Beginning [Mark 1:1],” JTS 62 [2011]: 20–50) summarizes once more the arguments
of both sides and votes on the basis of the manuscripts (“earliest and strongest support,” 50),
the inner logic, and the likelihood of the title’s omission in the copying process in favor of the
longer reading. D. B. Deppe (“Markan Christology and the Omission of υἱοῦ θεοῦ in Mark 1:1,”
Filologia Neotestamentica 21 [2008]: 45–64, 45) also puts into question the “new consensus …
in textual critical circles that favors the omission” and concludes after evaluating the arguments
that: “both external evidence and Markan Christology argue in favor of the inclusion of ‘Son of
God’ in the first sentence of Mark’s Gospel” (64). This contribution follows their argument.
27 For a detailed discussion of this concept and its theoretical foundation in the work of
M. Halbwachs, J. Assmann and A. Assmann, see S. Huebenthal, Das Markusevangelium als
kollektives Gedächtnis, 2nd ed., FRLANT 253 (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 2018);
Eng. trans., Reading Mark’s Gospel as a Text from Collective Memory (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerd-
mans, 2020).
As regards methodology, the investigation of Isaiah in Mark also shows that

the connection of narrative and intertextual analyses for reading an entire bib-
lical book in a social/cultural memory theoretical perspective not only helps to
uncover the book’s theological profile, but also discloses which cultural frames
are used to structure and organize memories of Jesus, and which cultural frames
are not (or no longer) used. For those standing behind the text, Mark’s Gospel
does not say who Jesus was, but with the help of an Isaiah framework discloses
who Jesus is. I would not be surprised if understanding Jesus as God’s anointed
son in terms of Isaiah was an identity marker of the group that gathered around
the Gospel according to Mark.
The clear result of my investigation is that Mark’s use of Isaiah is not about
theological schemes or about naïve proof-texting, but rather about making sense
of what happened on the basis his own cultural tradition or framework. The way
Isaiah features in Mark rules out the idea that Mark has worked off particular
topics and used a testimonium of proof-texts to get his message across.
With this in mind, an intriguing set of subsequent questions arose almost in-
stantly. How does the story of Isaiah as a cultural frame continue in early Chris-
tianity? Do other NT writings exhibit a similar importance for and use of this
particular text? Do they use the same parts of Isaiah in the same way? How does
the reception of Isaiah and of the Christ event framed in terms of Isaiah change
in the first generations of Jesus followers?
2. Isaiah as a Cultural Frame

Biblical scholarship has convincingly shown that in Second Temple Judaism in
general Isaiah was widely used as a lens or a frame to understand one’s own situ-
ation. The first generations of Jesus followers are part of this bigger picture, and
their handling of Isaiah is no exception. Knowledge of Isaiah and Isaian frames
were current among the first generations of Jesus followers and they would have
discussed their experiences with the help of these traditions. Some parts of
Isaiah might have been introduced into the discourse of the first generations of
Jesus followers already by Paul,28 and not only Mark will have picked up current
traditions and developed them further.
The process might have been different from the way it is often envisioned: if
we mentally move from the authorial mastermind to a vital group, it becomes
more plausible that debates have taken place among Jesus followers in different
groups in the first generations of Christianity before the ideas were finally put
to page. One key to a better understanding is to think less in terms of academic
28 Cf. D.‑A. Koch, “The Quotations of Isaiah 8,14 and 28,16 in Romans 9,33 and 1Peter
2,6.8 as Test Case for Old Testament Quotations in the New Testament,” ZNW 101 (2010):
223–40, 240.
writing than in oral or even pastoral terms.29 Mark then ceases to be a one-man-
show and a lone genius author who gathered traditions quietly in his study, or
who met other early Christian missionaries and preachers with whom he shared
his knowledge, before he wrote the book to instruct his community.
The Pauline letters vividly portray smaller groups who were deeply engaged
in worship, discussion, and (missionary) work. Making sense of what they
experienced and how it informed their understanding of both themselves and
the world was not left to the leaders of the group who informed the others about
their decision. It was rather a mutual and open process in which everyone was
involved. In the end, the house group (Hauskreis) or Bible study groups we
know from our own times may prove more helpful for envisioning how texts like
Mark’s Gospel came about and made use of socio-religious and cultural frames
for understanding than the common idea of the community leader or evangelist
acting all by himself.30
A plausible scenario for the development in the next generation might unfold
thus. Over time, the composition of the groups of Jesus followers changes, not
only because of a larger temporal and, in most cases, spatial distance from the
Christ event, but also because the groups become more variegated over time
as more non-Jews join them. Another area of influence is the modified social
environment of these groups, including different locations within the Roman
empire. We also have to take into account incidents like the Jewish-Roman War,
the destruction of the Second Temple and the death of the first generation of
Jesus followers.
A typical response to all of these changes would be adjustments of the found-
ing stories and identity-forming patterns of the groups. In the case of references
to Isaiah it could be expected that the influence of this particular frame dimin-
ishes with more non-Jews joining and dominating the groups. As Isaiah is not
part of their own cultural memory, we would not expect to find a network of
mostly unflagged references to an important text from the Jewish tradition in
writings of the third generation of Jesus followers. It seems more likely that the
groups retain references to Isaiah in a modified form which on the one hand re-
spects the impact Isaiah’s prophecy had for the first generations of Jewish Jesus-
followers, and on the other hand takes into account that most of the members of
29 In his Forschungsüberblick to the Gospel of Matthew, M. Konradt has proposed a

related scenario regarding the formation of Matthew. He proposes a longer reflection process
of the group behind the Gospel together with the evangelist. This process reflected both (oral)
traditions and Scripture and was only eventually textualized (“Die Rezeption der Schrift im
Matthäusevangelium in der neueren Forschung,” TLZ 135 [2010]: 919–32).
30 This parallel only works by approximation. In the first groups of Jesus followers, members
would, of course, not have had their own Bibles which they brought to the meetings. Here, the
parallel might rather ring with the experiences of smaller communities with Bible-sharing in
Latin America or South Africa or the communities in the context of liberation theology.
the group(s) do not have a living connection to this tradition and will thus not
be able to detect even the most obvious allusion.
One scenario could thus be that only a few “typical” points of reference from
the book of Isaiah will be quoted in later texts and that they will over time turn
into genuine “Christian” points of reference which are used and quoted without
regard to their original context. Candidates for this scenario are Isa 6:9–10, 40:3,
61:1, or ch. 53, given that these quotations seem to feature prominently in the
NT. It is easy to see that this scenario could also embrace the idea of testimonia.
The idea behind this scenario still rings with form-critical investigations which
consider the individual quote without assuming the entire book of Isaiah to be
the larger frame. A second scenario could be that the Isaian frame is retained,
but has to be explained to those who are not familiar with it. In this case one
could expect a similar amount of references to Isaiah, but with marking and
explanation why it is important.
It is easy to visualize the scenarios: a survey of quotations and allusions to
Isaiah reveals whether the use of the book decreases on average, and it is more
or less the same quotations or clusters of references that occur to address the
same questions, and they all exhibit a similar (proto-) Christian connotation.
The first insight from a survey of the use of Isaiah in the NT is that Isaiah seems
to retain its significance. A cumulative visualization of the quotes of Isaiah in the
NT emphasizes this notion, as it is shown in Figure 3.31
Although the exact number for the amount of identified references varies from
source to source, Isaiah is undoubtedly the most frequently quoted text and text
alluded to from Israel’s Scriptures after the Psalms.32 A survey of the quotations
from Isaiah in the NT indicates that the name “Isaiah” is only mentioned in the
narrative texts and in Paul’s letter to the Romans. Although Paul makes use of
Isaiah in all of his letters, he only mentions the name of the prophet in Romans,
and with one exception (Rom 15:12) all of the quotations directly assigned to
Isaiah occur in Romans 9–10 (9:27, 28; 10:16, 20, 21).33
31 This visualization is built on data from the “Loci citati vel allegati” in NA28; see also
S. Moyise and M. J. J. Menken, eds., Isaiah in the New Testament, NTSI (London: T&T Clark,
2005); and F. Wilk, “Die Geschichte des Gottesvolkes im Licht jesajanischer Prophetie:
Neutestamentliche Perspektiven,” in Josephus und das Neue Testament: Wechselseitige Wahr-
nehmungen, II. Internationales Symposium zum Corpus Judaeo-Hellenisticum, 25.–28. Mai 2006,
Greifwald, ed. C. Böttrich und J. Herzer, WUNT 209 (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck 2007), 245–64.
32 See, e. g. Wilk, “Geschichte des Gottesvolkes,” 248; or, C. A. Evans, “From Gospel to
Gospel: The Function of Isaiah in the New Testament,” in Writing and Reading the Scroll of
Isaiah: Studies of an Interpretative Tradition, ed. C. C. Broyles and C. A. Evans, 2 vols., VTSup
70, FIOTL 1 (Leiden: Brill, 1997), 2:651–91, 651.
33 Even though Paul has quoted Isaiah already in his earlier letters, he only mentions the
name in Romans, distinguishing him from other voices in Israel’s Scriptures like Moses and
David; cf. F. Wilk, “Paulus als Nutzer, Interpret und Leser des Jesajabuches,” in Die Bibel im
Dialog der Schriften: Konzepte intertextueller Bibellektüre, ed. S. Alkier and R. B. Hays, NET 10
(Tübingen: Francke, 2005), 93–116, 96.
Figure 3a
Figure 3b
Figure 4a
Figure 4b
A visualization of the estimated quotations and allusions to Isaiah in the NT,

broken down to the book and going beyond the direct quotes indicates as it is
carried out in Figure 4, however, that things are not as easy as initially thought.34
The impact of Israel’s Scriptures does not diminish with more non-Jews
joining the early groups of Jesus followers, nor do references to Isaiah generally
decrease. It also does not imply that they are marked more clearly and/or are
reduced to a set of “typical” references which are used to address particular top-
ics. Once one goes beyond mere scratching the surface, it becomes clear that for
the groups behind the NT texts Isaiah remains an important frame of reference.
The trend might rather be that if Isaiah is mentioned and directly referred to, the
book serves as a hermeneutical frame beyond the actual quotations and there
is usually more of Isaiah to be found than the quotation (esp. Paul, Mark, Mat-
thew, Luke/Acts, John, and 1 Peter). At least in one point the prediction proves
to be correct: In cases where Isaiah is not directly referred to, no Isaian frame
is found either (Deutero-Pauline letters, 1–3 John, Jude, 2 Peter). Hebrews and
Revelation are special cases as they use the whole body of Israel’s Scriptures as a
frame of reference.
A closer look at the Gospel of Luke as a second test case also shows that the
Isaian framework does not become less important or less visible.35 Quite the con-
trary: a closer reading reveals that the Isaian frame in Luke is not less prominent
than in Mark, but only different in character. Luke’s Isaian frame is not only
much more visible also to non-Jews. It is also explained much better. Even those
who do not know Isaiah will learn something about the prophet’s message and
why it is and will remain important for the groups of Jesus followers. Those who
are from a Jewish tradition will find Isaiah to be not only one of the main points
of reference when it comes to a proper understanding of Jesus, but also the main
point of reference to explain their own situation. Both the mixed communities
of Jews and Gentiles and the rejection of this project by many members of Is-
rael, seem to be predicted in Isaiah, up the fact that the anointed Son of God
and eschatological messenger of God’s kingdom is “numbered with transgres-
sors” (Luke 22:37, quoting Isa 53:12). Contrary to initial expectations, Isaiah
remains important for the groups of Jesus followers, whom we might now call
“Christians” according to Acts 11:26. In both Luke and Acts the message to the
Gentile newcomers seems to be: The prophet Isaiah and his message might not
have been part of your cultural heritage and tradition before you encountered
Jesus, but now that you are Jesus followers, it has become part of your tradition
34 This visualization based on the “Loci citati vel allegati” of NA28 can only provide a first
and very coarse sketch and needs a much more thorough investigation.
35 Cf. S. Huebenthal, “Another Frozen Moment: Reading Luke in Social Memory Theo-
retical Framework,” PIBA 41/42 (2019): 23–43; eadem, “Canon or Cultural Frame? Identity-
Construction according to Luke,” in Relationships of the Two Parts of the Christian Bible, ed.
G. Steins, P. Sumpter, and J. Taschner, OSJCB (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, [forth-
coming]).
for otherwise it is impossible to understand both Jesus and the situation of the
groups of Jesus followers.
3. Further Questions and More Probes:

Isa 52:13–53:12 in New Testament Traditions
It is obvious that the assumption that references to Isaiah decrease in number
and range and/or become more stereotypical because the groups of Jesus follow-
ers have more non-Jewish members is wrong – at least for NT times. A survey of
references to Isaiah in the NT combined with a very preliminary analysis of the
texts is sufficient to prove that this is not the case. It becomes likewise clear that
the investigation of Isaian frames in NT requires more than counting and listing
quotations, allusions, and echoes, and asking whether they have been quoted
correctly. The use of different parts of Isaiah further exhibits a deep knowledge
and living connection to the book of Isaiah on part of those who stand behind
the NT. They turn to Isaiah to find answers to their situations and these answers
differ over time.
The solution to this riddle might be found elsewhere and, again, social mem-
ory theory can prove helpful. It might turn out that the initial ideas – both the
change in composition of the groups that must somehow bring about changes
and the emergence of testimonia – are correct, just the temporal framework did
not fit. As the discussion about the “Parting of the Ways,” which has recently
become rather a “party of the ways,”36 has shown, the date of the estimated break
around 70 or 130 CE was way too early, and the same applies to our question,
too. The solution seems to be that the shift is both a matter of genre and time.
From a social memory perspective, the assumption that things would change
already in the second and third generation is too early. Greater changes should
rather be expected beyond than before the floating gap (80–120 years after
the founding event) than beyond the generational gap (30–50 years after the
founding events).37
36 The concept has been introduced by W. Grünstäudl in his “Ertragene Alterität:

Anmerkungen zur theologischen Differenzkonstruktion in frühchristlicher Literatur,” in Kon-
struktionen individueller und kollektiver Identität, vol. 2: Alter Orient, hellenistisches Judentum,
römische Antike, Alte Kirche, ed. E. Bons and K. Finsterbusch, BThSt 168 (Neukirchen-Vluyn:
Neukirchener Theologie, 2017), 217–40; and it was subsequently used by T. Nicklas, “Parting
of the Ways? Probleme eines Konzepts,” in Juden, Christen, Heiden? Religiöse Inklusion und
Exklusion in Kleinasien bis Decius, ed. S. Alkier and H. Leppin, WUNT 400 (Tübingen: Mohr
Siebeck, 2018), 21–41, 37–38.
37 For a more nuanced introduction to the different epochs of early Christianity in a social
memory theoretical framework cf. S. Huebenthal, “‘Frozen Moments’ – Early Christianity
through the Lens of Social Memory Theory,” in Memory and Memories in Early Christianity:
Proceedings of the International Conference Held at the Universities of Geneva and Lausanne
(June 2–3, 2016), ed. S. Butticaz and E. Norelli, WUNT 398 (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2018),
17–43.
A third and more specific test dealing with Isa 52:13–53:12 can illustrate the
idea. The direct quotations of the fourth servant song demonstrate how different
cultural framing in form of intertextual disposition operates before and after the
generational gap as well as the floating gap.
Paul and his use of Israel’s Scriptures as a cultural frame take place before
the generational gap. The expectation is that he will use cultural frames like Is-
rael’s Scriptures to understand his own situation. This is exactly what we witness
in his references to the fourth servant song in Rom 10:16 (Isa 53:1) and 15:21
(Isa 52:15). These references to Isaiah are not used to make sense of Jesus and
his fate, but of Paul’s own situation, in which Gentiles turn to Christ and receive
the Gospel he proclaims while Jews do so less.38
The context of Rom 10:14–18 should be taken into account for the evaluation
of the quotation: Isa 53:1 is used here in order to analyze and understand Paul’s
own situation of preaching the good news about Jesus and not the situation and
destiny of Jesus himself. The point is that in Paul’s days the message of the gospel
is not embraced by everyone. In the previous verses we read a more general
reflection about faith and the acceptance of the gospel, flanked by quotations
from, i. e., Isa 28:16 and 52:7. As the argument continues, Isa 65:1 and 65:2 LXX
will follow in short sequence. It is obvious that this passage does not serve to
depict Jesus as Isaiah’s suffering servant. The same holds true for Rom 15:21.
The quotation from Isa 52:15 LXX here, too, does not say anything about Jesus,
neither as a person nor about his fate, but is used once more to analyze the
current state of the proclamation of the gospel and explain his decision within
the common frame of reference. In short: Paul makes use of Isaiah as a cultural
frame to understand and explain his own situation.
This is not to say that we do not also see the attempts of Paul trying to make
more general statements about the Jesus event and its impact on groups of Jesus
followers in his days as well. The approach is, however, still in the medium of
everyday conversation. Paul uses Israel’s Scripture to make sense of his situation
but he does not, on average, try to make his own experience part of this tradition
(no Fortschreibung der Tradition) and he does not use fulfillment quotations in
the same way as we find them in the Gospels.39 Or, as Rafael Rodríguez has re-
38 Paul uses the same quotes, Isa 53:1 (Rom 10:16) and Isa 6:9–10 (Rom 11:8) as John
12:38–40, but in a completely different way. They are not used to understand Jesus, but the
situation Paul himself is in. Cf. Wilk, “Paulus als Nutzer,” 93–116; and J. R. Wagner, “Isaiah
in Romans and Galatians,” in Moyise and Menken, Isaiah in the New Testament, 117–32, 118.
We are seeing a textbook example of the difference between social memory (making sense of
experiences by using existent frames: Paul) and collective memory (fabrication of new frames:
John).
39 M. J. J. Menken begins his study about the use of Scripture in Matthew with an instructive
survey of the fulfillment quotations in the whole of the NT; see Matthew’s Bible: The Old
Testament Text of the Evangelist, BETL 173 (Leuven: Leuven University Press; Dudley, MA:
Peeters, 2004), 1–10. In the Gospel according to Mark, the name “Isaiah” is mentioned twice
cently put it: “Alignment rather than replacement characterizes how Paul relates
to Moses’s Torah and Israel’s Messiah.”40 Rom 1:2–4:17 serves as Paul’s attempt
to make sense of what he encounters and does so in the light of the Jewish tradi-
tion without inscribing himself and his situation into this tradition. If we stick
with Maurice Halbwachs’s distinction between social and collective memory, we
see a textbook example: social memory is described as localization within given
(cultural) frames while collective memory is the fabrication of new frames for
identity construction. Both can happen at the same time – which is also visible
in Paul. The latter is, however, all the more likely beyond the generational gap.
The use of the fourth servant song in the time between the generational and
the floating gap – the time we would expect externalizations of collective rather
than social memory – exhibits exactly that: we are dealing with memory lit-
erature remembering both Jesus’s and Paul’s heritage, i. e., texts that extrapolate
traditions. Other than Romans, the narrative tradition of the NT does not use
Isaiah 53 to understand their own situation, but rather that of Jesus and his fate –
the founding events of the groups of Jesus followers. The texts do indeed go a
step further than Paul: Israel’s Scriptures are not only the frame of reference to
understand Jesus and what happened to him but the Christ event is framed as
part of this tradition. We are encountering the inscription of the foundational
experience of Jesus followers into the existing frames as Fortschreibung der bib-
lischen Tradition. Jesus has been foretold and announced in the biblical prophecy
and the NT narrative tradition shows how the story continues. It is in these texts
that Jesus gradually becomes identified with the suffering servant, until Luke/
Acts and John also paint Jesus’s passion in these colors.
Paul might have marveled at John’s use of Isa 53:1.41 While he used the same
verse in Rom 10:16 to address the problem that parts of Israel rejected the Gos-
and is each time preceding a direct quotation, thus two of the five quotations from Isaiah are
directly ascribed to Isaiah (Mark 1:2–3; 7:6, 7). The trend continues in the other narrative
texts of the NT. In Matthew six of the ten quotations from Isaiah are directly assigned to the
prophet (Matt 3:3; 4:15–16; 8:17; 12:18; 13:13–15; 15:8–9) and three of them are flagged as
fulfillment quotations (4:15–16; 8:17; 12:18). In Luke two of the six quotations from Isaiah are
directly assigned (Luke 3:4–6; 4:18–19), one of them can be regarded as a fulfillment quotation
(4:18–19); in Acts two of five quotations are directly assigned (Acts 8:32–33; 28:26). In John,
finally, three of the four quotations are directly assigned (John 1:23; 12:38, 40, the fourth, 6:45
is assigned to a prophet), two of them are flagged as fulfillment quotations (12:38, 40). None of
the quotations in the narrative texts is marked as a fulfillment quotation more than once and the
only two passages from Isaiah that are quoted in all of the Gospels are Isa 6:9–10 (Mark 4:12;
Matt 13:13–15; Luke 8:10; John 12:40; and Acts 28:16) and Isa 40:3–5 (Mark 1:2–3; Matt 3:3;
Luke 3:4–6; John 1:23). Both quotations serve as fulfillment quotations in one of the Gospels
and the latter quotation is in all the Gospels directly assigned to Isaiah. In the other books of the
NT, the references to Isaiah go entirely unflagged, but not necessarily unnoticed.
40 R. Rodríguez, Jesus Darkly: Remembering Jesus with the New Testament (Nashville:
Abingdon, 2018), 10 (emphasis original).
41 Paul uses Isaiah 53 neither in a Christological nor in a soteriological way but in order
to understand his own mission, cf. W. Kraus, “Jesaja 53 LXX im frühen Christentum – eine
pel, John connects the idea in 12:38 with the application of the servant tradition
to Jesus.42 To put it differently: while references to Isaiah 53 in earlier texts do
not transport the notion of substitution in suffering,43 in John the allusions and
echoes around the “typical quotations from Isaiah” in John 12 provide a stable
Isaian frame and speaks much more clearly about Jesus as Isaiah’s servant as it is
the case in Mark and Matthew.
The NT narrative tradition (and Deutero-Pauline letters as the extended
Pauline tradition) set the course for Christian identity constructions with their
fabrication of new frames for understanding. While Mark could be read as a first
attempt, still very much indebted to social memory, Matthew, Luke, and John
provide foundational stories that work existing tradition into a new model. Using
the terminology of Kenneth Gergen, they are stabilizing narratives, while Mark
with his open end must be seen as a regressive narrative.44 As externalizations
from collective memory make use of existing tradition, those standing behind
the Gospels have to be fluent in this tradition in order to capture and preserve it
for the future. Recent studies about the use of Isaiah in the NT assume that the
authors of the NT had knowledge of the entire text of Isaiah, not only individual
passages. This assumption goes hand in hand with a tendency of moving away
Überprüfung,” in Beiträge zur urchristlichen Theologiegeschichte, ed. idem, BZNW 163 (Berlin:
De Gruyter, 2009), 149–82, 167; and D.‑A. Koch, Schrift als Zeuge des Evangeliums: Unter-
suchungen zur Verwendung und zum Verständnis der Schrift bei Paulus, BHT 69 (Tübingen:
Mohr Siebeck, 1986), 232–39.
42 Cf. S. Huebenthal, “Proclamation Rejected, Truth Confirmed: Reading John 12:37–44 in
a Social Memory Theoretical Framework,” in Hatina, Gospel of John, 183–200, 198–200..
43 That also applies to the quotations of Isa 53:4 in Matt 8:17, Isa 53:7 in Acts 8:32–33, and
Isa 53:12 in Luke 22:3, as Kraus, “Jesaja 53 LXX,” has demonstrated. The problem with Isaiah 53
and the servant tradition in general might be that later readers who know the Songs of God’s
suffering servant as a hermeneutical frame for Jesus from their own times, sometimes run the
risk of “finding” it already in early traditions of the NT. The application of the servant tradition
to Jesus seems to be, in fact, a later tradition. The assumption that Isaiah 53 as a hermeneutical
lens to understand Jesus’s death is also supported by J. Woyke, “Der leidende Gottesknecht
(Jes 53),” in Die Verheißung des Neuen Bundes: Wie alttestamentliche Texte im Neuen Testament
fortwirken, ed. B. Kollmann, BThS 35 (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 2010), 200–25.
44 Formation and negotiation of identity seems to play an important role for narrative or-
ganization, especially for groups. Gergen accentuated the basic narrative forms stabilizing, pro-
gressive and regressive as regards their interplay with human relations. While stabilizing narrative
are an important means to achieve certitude, that the others are indeed what or who they seem
to be, people in the initial stages of relationships rather tell progressive stories, to elevate the
value of the relationship and establish larger promises for the future. Regressive stories, finally,
usually fulfill a compensatory function. They either canvass for empathy or serve the purpose
to (newly) raise the force and motivation to reach a certain end (after all). In each of these cases
the story is not only told for its own sake, but to establish a particular self-perception (of an
individual or a group). In the end these stories are also identity-forming; identity formation is
though and through a discursive trait. Cf. K. Gergen, “Erzählung, Moralische Identität und his-
torisches Bewusstsein,” in Erzählung, Identität, und historisches Bewusstsein: Die psychologische
Konstruktion von Zeit und Geschichte, Identität 1, ed. J. Straub (Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp,
1998), 170–202, 177–81.
from a simple scheme of promise and fulfillment when it comes to investigate the
Old Testament in the New.
Florian Wilk has convincingly shown not only that Paul knew the whole book
of Isaiah but also demonstrates a chronological (and theological) development
of the apostle’s use of the scroll.45 Maarten J. J. Menken has shown the same for
Matthew,46 and Rouven Genz presents in his study the state of research for Luke-
Acts which he supports.47 Given the range of different quotations and allusions
as they are also displayed in Figure 4, I would assume the same for Mark and
John. This also means that the first generations of Jesus followers retained a
living connection to the Jewish tradition. Obviously, they did not work with tes-
timonies but used the whole of Isaiah’s prophecy.
D. Beyond the Floating Gap:

Hypothesizing about the Next Steps
The million dollar question is thus: what happens in early Christianity after the
time of the NT – or, in the terminology of social memory theory: what happens
beyond the floating gap? On the way there we encounter 1 Peter, a letter that
also makes direct use of Isaiah 53. Its change in argument and tone compared
to Paul and the narrative tradition is remarkable. The larger context of the quo-
tation in 1 Pet 2:22–25 is 2:18–25. This passage provides the part of a Haustafel
that addresses slaves and suggests that their behavior should be oriented towards
Christ himself. The passage contains for the first time a connection of several
references to Isaiah 53 applied to Jesus’s fate and death.48 One could say that
in 1 Peter we finally we find something like a first “Christian” tradition which
45 Wilk has carried out extensive research in this area, in Die Bedeutung des Jesajabuches
für Paulus, FRLANT 179 (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1998); idem, “Geschichte des
Gottesvolkes”; idem, “Jesajanische Prophetie im Spiegel exegetischer Tradition: Zu Hintergrund
und Sinngehalt des Schriftzitats in 1 Kor 2,9,” in Die Septuaginta – Entstehung, Sprache, Ge-
schichte: 3. internationale Fachtagung veranstaltet von Septuaginta Deutsch (LXX.D), Wuppertal
22.–25. Juli 2010, ed. S. Kreuzer, M. Meiser, and M. Sigismund, WUNT 286 (Tübingen: Mohr
Siebeck, 2012), 480–504; Wilk, “Paulus als Nutzer,” 115.
46 Menken, Matthew’s Bible, 279–83.
47 R. Genz, Jesaja 53 als theologische Mitte der Apostelgeschichte: Studien zu ihrer Christo-
logie und Ekklesiologie im Anschluss an Apg 8,26–40, WUNT 2/389 (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck,
2015), 1–16.
48 1 Peter is an especially intriguing case, as quotations in 2:6, 8 (the only instances where
quotations from Isaiah are introduced as Scripture) seem to be dependent on Rom 9:33, as
Koch, “Quotations of Isaiah,” has shown. The references to Isa 65:17 and 66:22 in 1 Pet 3:13
might as well be referring to or coming from Rev 21:1. In 1 Pet 2:22–25, the author indeed
seems to use a Christian tradition based on Isaiah 53; cf. C. Breytenbach, “Christus litt euret-
wegen: Zur Rezeption von Jes 53 im 1. Petrusbrief,” in Deutungen des Todes Jesu im Neuen
Testament, ed. J. Frey and J. Schröter, 2nd ed. (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2012), 437–54; Kraus,
“Jesaja 53 LXX,” 172–74.
draws from Christian, not Jewish frames.49 The difference between 1 Peter and
the Gospels seems to be not only due to genre but also to the question where
the text originates in terms of temporal distance to the foundational event. Is it
before or after the generational gap and before or after the floating gap?
Similar observations can be made for Justin and his 1 Apology (officially
directed to the emperor Antonius Pius but actually speaking ad intra) which
was composed around 150/155 CE. As regards the temporal distance from the
foundational events, this text, too, is located somewhere around the floating
gap. Without going into detail here, it can be safely said that Justin displays a
remarkable reading of Isa 53:12 in 1 Apol. 50.2 which is not in line with either
the Hebrew or the LXX version. Here, too, the question is where the seemingly
distorted quote comes from, and the suspicion arises again that Justin made use
of a testimonium, than that he creatively interacted with the cultural frame ap-
plying it to his own situation and modelling it according to his needs.50 As noted
earlier, this is exactly what could be expected in the times of collective memory,
especially when it comes to an identity constituting text for an audience with
presumably no Jewish heritage. As already suspected for 1 Peter, we might be
witnessing the beginning of a “Christian” tradition.
Regarding the questions of intertextuality and the formation of traditions,
research beyond the floating gap has not yet been carried out with a social mem-
ory theoretical approach to intertextuality. NT research in this area heavily relies
on the findings of patristic scholarship in order establish a first understanding
and to chart some of the texts and discourses. This field requires a thorough
49 This is not to claim that 1 Peter is no longer familiar with Isaiah, but that an intra-
Christian discussion and tradition of Isaiah might be in operation. Whether this has to lead to
the conclusion that “the author of 1 Peter seldom strays from the church’s standard proof texts
(Isa. 8, 11, 28, 40, 53) and is clearly indebted to much traditional exegesis” (S. Moyise, “Isaiah in
1 Peter,” in idem and Menken, Isaiah in the New Testament, 175–88, 188) is, however, debatable.
A detailed investigation of Isaiah in 1 Peter with regard to interpretative frames might prove to
be quite fruitful and support that the author’s “indebtedness to Isaiah is clear and goes beyond
mere proof-texting” (ibid.).
50 Cf. C. Markschies, “Der Mensch Jesus Christus im Angesicht Gottes: Zwei Modelle des
Verständnisses von Jesaja 52,13–53,12 in der patristischen Literatur und deren Entwicklung,”
in Der leidende Gottesknecht: Jesaja 53 und seine Wirkungsgeschichte, mit einer Bibliographie zu
Jes 53, ed. B. Janowski and P. Stuhlmacher, FAT 14 (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 1996), 197–249.
Markschies argues: “Einige Beobachtungen am Text deuten darauf hin, daß Justin diesen Vers
einem christlichen Testimonium entnahm und als Überschrift dem ganzen Abschnitt voran-
stellte, den der aus der LXX zitierte: Der letzte Versteil von Jes 53,12 = 1Apol. 50,2 ist gegenüber
der LXX bemerkenswert verändert und ähnelt der späteren Formulierung des Targum Onkelos;
am besten erklärt er sich als ein vorjustinianischer Versuch der Übersetzung des masoretischen
Textes. Die übrigen Zitate aus Jes 52/53 entsprechen allerdings bis Kap. 51,5 vollkommen kor-
rekt der LXX‑Version. Obwohl Justin also wohl ein Testimonium verwendete, hat er trotzdem
den Textabschnitt sehr selbständig und bewusst theologisch gestaltet” (211). The intriguing
question is once more whether it is indeed necessary to assume a testimonium here instead
of a creative dealing with the tradition or if this assumption simply mirrors a default research
paradigm.
investigation and will be the subject of one of my next research projects. From
what I have read and analyzed so far, first conclusions can be drawn.
The narrative tradition of the NT plays a crucial role, and it is first and fore-
most the Gospels as foundational texts with their still-debated literary genre that
are the game changers. Beyond the floating gap, the texts we now consider to fall
into the literary genre “Gospel” (i. e., narrative texts about the founding events
of Christianity) quickly obtain some kind of proto-canonical status. This can be
gathered from the addition of Evangelienüberschriften in the mid-second century
and their reception as religious genre that is best compared to Scripture. Or,
phrased differently: regardless of their literary genre, their status as foundational
literature of early Christianity sets the course for their further use. The moment
they are received as normative and formative foundational texts – Scripture or
a cultural frame – it is no longer important whether their literary genre is bios,
historiography, hypomnēmata or something else.
In the second half of the second century, the Gospels gradually became nor-
mative and formative foundational texts and parts of Christian cultural memory.
They provide stable frames for Christian identity construction(s). In doing so
they have also preserved Israel’s Scripture as part of Christian cultural memory.
The ever increasing authoritative character of the Gospels is a clear indicator for
this process, as testified by the Gospel titles and the debates with Marcion. The
preservation of Israel’s Scriptures as part of the Christian cultural memory did not
go without debates. The patristic commentaries on Israel’s Scriptures, however,
bear witness in their own way to the success of the Gospels in this regard.
Later generations who are no longer rooted in the cultural framework of Sec-
ond Temple Judaism or have no Jewish heritage at all use the Gospels as frames
of reference for their own identity construction and its defense both ad intra and
ad extra. As Isaiah and his prophecy have been preserved in these foundational
texts, the question is whether authors beyond the floating gap use and quote
Isaiah in its original context or as part of an emerging Christian tradition. Here,
again, there will be no one-size-fits-all model, as Christoph Markschies already
has pointed out,51 and his thoughts are a good starting point for a more thorough
investigation. The recourse to the fourth servant song will be dependent on the
situation, the subject and genre of the individual text, and its target audience.
Apologetic writings directed to or using Jewish dialogue partners will look dif-
ferent that those with or for a Gentile target audience.
As Christianity proceeds through time, there is less use of Israel’s Scriptures
alone to explain and understand the Christ event. Jesus and the Gospels even-
tually become the new frame to understand Israel’s Scriptures. The inscription of
the Jesus followers into the cultural frame of Second Temple Judaism is followed
by the Vereinnahmung of the frame, up the point where it is no longer possible to
51 Markschies, “Der Mensch Jesus Christus.”

understand it on its own. After Israel’s Scriptures had become the indispensable
frame to understand Jesus, for Jesus followers Jesus, in turn, becomes the indis-
pensable frame for reading Israel’s Scriptures. This group is quickly growing out
of Second Temple Judaism and will eventually become a distinguishable social
and religious entity.
From a social memory point of view, this process is comprehensible and
mirrors typical patterns of emerging social groups or emerging religions. It is
no surprise that the debate about what stance to take to the Jewish heritage be-
came more pressing after the third generation and beyond the floating gap. The
groups of Jesus followers are leaving the times of collective memories and need
to find a clear stance to their own self-perception and identity. The downside of
this – very successful – process only becomes visible in hindsight. With Jesus
being indispensable for understanding Israel’s Scripture, the way was paved
for the Christian substitution of Judaism, a development with most devastating
results. It needed the catastrophe of the twentieth century to realize that there is
something deeply flawed in the Christian texture and to initiate the process of a
critical re-evaluation of our construction of Christian origins on a larger scale.
Biblical scholarship has the duty to move beyond these biases and limitations.
Intertextuality in social, collective, and cultural memory has different goals and
objectives. It is crucial not to confuse them. How urgent this task is, can be
gathered from a last example tracing the interpretation of Isa 53:1/6:10 in John
12:37–43.52 The standard assumption in this case, too, is that “both passages were
widely known and used as early Christian proof-texts concerning Jewish un-
belief (Isa. 53:1 in Rom. 10:16; Isa. 6:9–10 in Matt. 13:14–15; Acts 28:26–27; cf.
Mark 4:12; Luke 8:10; Rom. 11:18).”53 Hans Förster has recently asked whether
we “are indeed dealing with a problematic text or whether the anti-Judaic trans-
lations and interpretations are caused by a problematic handling of the text.”54
To put it differently: is the idea of “proof ” and an apologetic interest present in
the text itself, or reflective of later interpretive priorities?
One crucial point for the understanding of John 12:40 is the notoriously
difficult part καὶ ἰάσομαι αὐτούς. Will the people be healed by God or not?55 In
many scholarly contributions, the answer is a blunt “no.” In his work on the use
of Isaiah 52–53 in John, Daniel J. Brendsel states:
52 For an exhaustive investigation of this quote, see Huebenthal, “Proclamation Rejected.”

53 C. H. Williams, “Isaiah in John’s Gospel,” in Moyise and Menken, Isaiah in the New Tes-
tament, 106–16, 108.
54 H. Förster, “Ein Vorschlag für ein neues Verständnis von Joh 12,39–40,” ZNW 109 (2018):
51–75, 72 (my translation).
55 For the typical reading, see M. J. J. Menken, “Die Form des Zitats aus Jes 6,10 in Joh 12,40:
Ein Beitrag zum Schriftgebrauch des vierten Evangelisten,” BZ 32 (1988): 189–209, 204: “Wer
das finale Verständnis der Stelle sicherstellen will, muß mit ἵνα μή übersetzen. Und wer die
Stelle anführt als ‘Beweis’ dafür, daß ‘sie nicht glauben konnten’ (Joh 12,39), kann sie nur final
verstehen.”
Therefore, John concludes the public ministry of Jesus with summary comments con-
cerning the salvation-historical necessity of Jesus’s rejection by many in Israel (John
12:37–43). Jesus’s rejection by his own people is the fulfilment of the Servant’s experi-
ence of rejection (Isa 53:1 in John 12:38). Moreover, it is the climactic fulfillment of the
obduracy judgment proclaimed at Isaiah’s commissioning (Isa 6:10 in John 12:40).56
The assumption of a “salvation-historical necessity” is stunning. The wording

reveals a Christian perspective in which the new frame for understanding, as
it was introduced in John’s Gospel, has become canonized as a Christian frame
of interpretation: Isaiah no longer stands for himself, but is in the interpreted
version part of Christian cultural memory. This is not what the Fourth Gospel is
about, but in fact is an interpretation from a later theological perspective. In the
same way, John 1:11 is not a promise that has to be fulfilled, but an evaluation of
what has happened on part of the Johannine “we-group.” This evaluation serves
the needs of the Johannine group in order to stabilize their frail identity in a
situation of crisis, but backfires when seen as the only way of understanding
both Isaiah’s prophecy and the recourse to it in John’s Gospel, where it is prone
to pave a very problematic theological road. The moment when the rejection of
God’s people is seen as necessary prerequisite of Christian salvation-history, the
intertextual reference discussed here almost naturally becomes one of the key
texts to “prove” that.
The discussion of the double quote from Isaiah in John 12 exhibits once more
the problematic features of a particular approach to biblical intertextuality:
(a) the treatment of individual intertextual references instead of the whole con-
texts of both hypo- and hypertext; (b) the assumption of an apologetic intention
of the text (or at least the quote) in a Christological debate; (c) the suspicion
of the existence of collections of Christian or Christological proof-texts in NT
times; and (d) the stability of the OT textual tradition; as well as (e) the invari-
ability of its use in early Christianity.
It will take some time to overcome these biases, but the first steps have already
been taken. Hans Förster, by reversing the causal connection has rightly pointed
out that “the disrespect for the original context of Isa 6:10 in the modern trans-
lations has laid the basis that the assumption of a change of subject in Isa 6:10
could become exegetical consensus and the locus classicus of Israel’s obduracy.”57
The danger of projecting later dogmatic decisions back into biblical texts will
remain as long as the notion of the stability of texts, traditions, and their use
56 D. J. Brendsel, “Isaiah Saw his Glory”: The Use of Isaiah 52–53 in John 12, BZNW 208
(Berlin: De Gruyter, 2014), 213.
57 Förster, “Ein Vorschlag,” 74–75 (my translation, emphasis original). In this perspective
the text ceases to be a statement about those outside and instead becomes but a confirmation for
those inside. As an identity-forming text it is necessarily much more concerned with stabilizing
the portrait of the group than with ideas who the others are. For a more detailed theological
investigation of the use of Isaiah 53 in Early Christianity and the danger of projecting back later
dogmatic decisions into the biblical text, see Kraus, “Jesaja 53 LXX.”
prevails. The default historical-critical use of intertexts does not allow for the
fluidity of traditions. That is why their form is so important.
The very moment when an intertextual reference is liberated from the
straightjacket of historical-critical limitations, whole books are considered
instead of putative collections of apologetic quotes, the heuristic value of the
creative use of tradition in identity formation is acknowledged instead of mere
source tracking and there is an allowance for change in the use of traditions
over time, intertextual references can unfold their real potential. The form of
the reference might then become an indicator for the larger context in which
it is used and can lead to deeper understanding of its pragmatics. Determining
the form of a text or an intertextual reference can only be the starting point for
fascinating journeys to unexpected places in early Christian identity formation
processes.
Part Two
Mark as Narrative in the Light

of Ancient and Modern Literary Criticism
The Gospel according to Mark
The Yardstick for Comparing the Gospels
with Ancient Texts1
Cilliers Breytenbach
A. Introduction
Why is the Gospel according to Mark the yardstick, when comparing the gospels
with ancient texts? This is because the Gospel according to Mark is the oldest
gospel. This episodic narrative was written around the Jewish War of 66–70 CE.2
Karl Lachmann introduced the hypothesis of Markan priority when he argued
in 1835 that it is evident that in the order of the disposition of their material,
both Matthew and Luke followed a source closely related to Mark.3 Based on
Markan priority, Christian Hermann Weisse put forward the case for the two-
source hypothesis: independently of each other, both Matthew and Luke used
Mark and inserted parts of a now lost collection of sayings into the Markan
narrative frame.4 Mark thus forms the backbone of both Matthew and Luke. As
for the infancy narratives, they were prefixed to the Markan frame, and the post-
resurrection appearance stories were added onto Mark’s final episode about
the empty grave in 16:1–8. Matthew and Luke increased the scant biographical
elements of Mark considerably. From the point of view of the most recent author
on biographies in antiquity, Tomas Hägg,
[t]he important fact … is that both Luke and Matthew choose to replace Mark’s beginning
in medias res with regular prologues and some novel narrative material concerning Jesus’
background, birth, and childhood. The thirty years that presumably precede his baptism
in the Jordan are thus beginning to be filled. It seems reasonable to think that at least part
of the explanation for these expansions is biographical curiosity.5
1 I thank David Moessner, the incumbent of the Bradford Chair, Matt Calhoun, and the
TCU Department of Religion for the invitation to present this essay. The discussion with par-
ticipants and the respondent Johan Thom was rewarding. I thank them and my former co-
workers in Berlin, Bärbel Bosenius, and David du Toit, for their comments.
2 Cf. C. Breytenbach, The Gospel of Mark as Episodic Narrative, NovTSup (Leiden: Brill,
[forthcoming]).
3 K. Lachmann, “De ordine narrationum in evangeliis synopticis,” TSK 8 (1835): 570–90.
4 C. H. Weisse, Die evangelische Geschichte, kritisch und philologisch bearbeitet, 2 vols.
(Leipzig: Breitkopf & Härtel, 1838).
5 T. Hägg, The Art of Biography in Antiquity (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press,
2012), 166–67.
180 Cilliers Breytenbach
They provide empirical evidence that Matthew and Luke – if they are to be
classified as biographies – felt that Mark’s introduction was inadequate for a
biography.
Modern research on the Gospel according to John has moved beyond the
hypothesis that the Fourth Gospel is independent of Mark. The hypothesis that
John knows the Synoptic tradition as we find it in the gospels, perhaps through
secondary orality, has gained much ground. The text that most influenced the
form, content, and function of Matthew, Luke, and (probably also) John is the
Gospel according to Mark. Arguing that Matthew and Luke or even John have
great similarities with ‘biographies’ (or ‘novels’) from the Greco-Roman period
does not necessarily imply that these similarities also emerge when Mark and
these texts are compared.6 Since Matthew and Luke are expanded and re-written
versions of Mark, and John is presupposing the tradition written in the Synoptic
Gospels, one has to start with Mark when one wants to compare the gospels with
Greco-Roman ‘biographies.’ In this essay I underline the need to determine the
mode of comparison, noting that there are still many researchers that do not
subscribe to the thesis that Mark is a biography.7
B. Comparison: Illustrative and Analytic
Comparative work is done for heuristic reasons, but how does one compare and
for what reason? According to Victoria E. Bonnell’s typology of comparison, one
should distinguish between an analytic and an illustrative mode of comparison.8
In the illustrative mode of comparison, individual cases are not juxtaposed
with one another, but with a theoretical model, which they illustrate (or serve
to correct and modify). Two points are compared to known common features
that are not accidental. Such common features have a model character, whereby
the model is abstracted from the individual phenomena. In our case, the texts
themselves came to us from Greco-Roman antiquity, but the model is a con-
struct of modern research. There is wide agreement on the texts which can be
classified as ancient ‘novels’;9 it is a matter of definition, however, whether one
6 On Mark and the Hellenistic novel, see M. A. Tolbert, Sowing the Gospel: Mark’s World in
Literary-Historical Perspective (Philadelphia: Fortress 1989), 55–79; C. Hedrick, “Conceiving
the Narrative: Colors in Achilles Tatius and the Gospel of Mark,” in Ancient Fiction and Early
Christian Narrative, ed. R. F. Hock, J. B. Chance, and J. Perkins, SymS 6 (Atlanta: Scholars
Press, 1998), 177–97; M. E. Vines, The Problem of Markan Genre: The Gospel of Mark and the
Jewish Novel, AcBib 3 (Leiden: Brill, 2002).
7 See the research report of R. A. Burridge, What Are the Gospels? A Comparison with
Graeco-Roman Biography, 3rd ed. (Waco, TX: Baylor University Press, 2018), I.16–I.31.
8 V. E. Bonnell, “The Uses of Theory, Concepts and Comparison in Historical Sociology,”
Comparative Studies in Society and History 22/2 (1980): 156–73.
9 T. Hägg, Eros und Tyche: Der Roman in der antiken Welt, Kulturgeschichte der antiken
The Gospel according to Mark 181
can speak of ‘biography’ as a genre within Greco-Roman literature.10 In the first

place, the ancients did not leave us a theoretical model, explaining what ancient
biographies were like. Secondly, biography is based on life, from birth to death,
its fundamental structure determined by life itself. This allows for much vari-
ation in how the story of a life can be told. Again, it is worthwhile to quote Tomas
Hägg: “… in the absence of ancient authorities on this generic question one has
to decide for oneself which other ancient texts qualify as biographies, and which
not.”11 He criticizes the more recent NT research on the question whether the
gospels are biographies for assuming that there is a general genre ‘biography’:
The unguarded assumption that there was such a thing after all – an “ancient biography”
with rules and characteristics that make its members distinct not only from other ancient
literature but also from biography at large – reappears with two major works that have set
the terms for the debate since the 1990s, Richard Burridge’s What Are the Gospels? (1992,
second augmented edition 2004) and Dirk Frickenschmidt’s Evangelium als Biographie
(1997).12 With different methods and textual corpora, both conclude that the gospels are
indeed ancient biographies.13
I will later return to the illustrative mode of comparison (§D) after first exploring
the analytical mode. In the limited and local analytic mode the “investigator
juxtaposes equivalent units with each other in order to discern regularities that
might provide explanatory generalizations.”14 However, what are equivalent
units? Recently, John S. Kloppenborg wrote:
In the search of “equivalent units” for comparison, the critical issue is the question that
we want to ask. In the abstract, there is no right comparandum, since comparison always
involves three, not two, terms: the two cases to be compared, and the scholars’ theoretical
interest, framed as “with respect to”: “x resembles y with respect to z.” Comparative tax-
onomies are devised in order to assist us in analyzing data by grouping data into useful
heuristic categories for specific tasks.15
What can be achieved by such an analytical comparison? Comparison should

seek for difference as well as similarities, since comparison is only meaningful
Welt 36 (Mainz: Philipp von Zabern, 1987); L. M. Wills, “The Jewish Novellas,” in Greek
Fiction: The Greek Novel in Context, ed. J. R. Morgan and R. Stoneman (London: Routledge,
1994), 223–38.
10 A. Dihle, “Die Evangelien und die griechische Biographie,” in Das Evangelium und die
Evangelien, ed. P. Stuhlmacher, WUNT 28 (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 1983), 383–411.
11 Hägg, Art of Biography, 152.
SNTSMS 70 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1992); 2nd ed. (Grand Rapids, MI:
Eerdmans, 2004); D. Frickenschmidt, Evangelium als Biographie: Die vier Evangelien im
Rahmen antiker Erzählkunst, TANZ 22 (Tübingen: Francke, 1997).
14 Bonnell, “Uses of Theory,” 165.
15 J. S. Kloppenborg, “Disciplined Exaggeration: The Heuristics of Comparison in Biblical
Studies,” NovT 59 (2017): 390–414, 398.
when similarities exist in a field of difference. By establishing difference and sim-

ilarity, comparison furthers understanding; it is done to clarify. The reason why
one compares and the questions one is asking must thus be formulated clearly.
It is, however, also important to say what comparison cannot do. Generally,
one has to keep in mind that comparison does not imply genealogy or influence.
Comparing the Gospel according to Mark to Greco-Roman biographies in the
mode of analytical comparison does not imply that genetic relationships exist
between these texts. To establish genealogical relationships is not the intent of
comparison. To put it with John Kloppenborg:
Instead, the function of comparison is heuristic, to see in the two texts common strategies
that might otherwise be overlooked if one were looking at only a single exemplum. Com-
parison is heuristic, for it allows us to see in a field of difference certain similarities that
are of intellectual interest, and which point to a common model or theory or cultural
strategy.16
C. Comparing the Gospel according to Mark

to Examples of Greco-Roman Biographies
1. Introduction: Which Texts Are Compared to the Gospels?

Which texts would be appropriate to be compared to the Gospel according
to Mark? Mark is a narrative, an episodic narrative. Narrative17 belongs to the
fundamental text types: narrative, argument, description, list, exposition, etc.
That does not mean that Mark does not include arguments, expositions, and
lists, but the primary text type is narrative. The question is, however, does Mark
represent a specific historical narrative genre? Some have claimed that it is a
biography. More than a century has passed since Friedrich Leo’s investigation of
the Greco-Roman biography was published 1901.18 Leo distinguished between
the peripatetic biography (e. g., Plutarch), which depicts the ethos of the char-
acter by narrating his actions, and the Alexandrian vita (Suetonius and Diogenes
Laertius), which describes the personality. J. Weiß noted in 1903:
Von einer Beschreibung oder Schilderung ist bei Markus so gut wie nichts vorhanden –
… – mitgeteilt werden πράξεις. … Gehört so unser Werk ohne Zweifel der peripatetischen
16 Kloppenborg, “Disciplined Exaggeration,” 407.

17 G. Genette, Narrative Discourse: An Essay in Method, trans. J. E. Lewin (Ithaca, NY:
Cornell University Press, 1980), 27: “I propose, without insisting on the obvious reasons for
my choice of terms, to use the word story for the signified or narrative content …, to use the
word narrative for the signifier, statement, discourse or narrative text itself, and to use the word
narrating for the producing narrative action and, by extension, the whole of the real or fictional
situation in which that action takes place.”
18 F. Leo, Die griechisch-römische Biographie nach ihrer literarischen Form (Leipzig:
Teubner, 1901).
Entwicklungslinie an …, so wird doch sofort auch klar, dass es in grossen und entschei-
denden Punkten von der biographischen Literatur überhaupt abrückt.19
Since Jesus is the Son of God, the question of how he had become who he
was, does not arise. Mark lacks interest in Jesus’s origin, youth, and external
appearance. Mark’s disinterest in the chronology of Jesus’s life leads Weiß to the
verdict, “… dass der Gesamtcharakter unsrer Schrift uns nicht gestattet, sie der
eigentlichen biographischen Literatur anzurechnen.”20 It is not necessary to re-
hearse the history of the research since Leo.21 For those who read German, Dirk
Frickenschmidt’s book22 discusses the contributions of classicists to the topic of
ancient biography in detail: Leo, Stuart, Steidle, Dihle, Momigliano, Lefkowitz,
Cox, and Geiger. To this impressive list, one should add Tomas Hägg’s recent
The Art of Biography in Antiquity.23 Frickenschmidt also reviews the comparison
of such texts with the gospels in NT research from Renan to Burridge: Votaw,
Esser, Stanton, Talbert, Lührmann, Shuler, Schenk, Dihle, Berger, Dormeyer,
Cancik, Aune, and Downing.
In his dissertation published in 1992, Burridge selected five earlier (Isocrates’s
Avagoras, Xenophon’s Agesilaus, Satyrus’s Euripides, Nepos’s Atticus, and Philo’s
Moses) and five later Greco-Roman biographies (Tacitus’s Agricola, Plutarch’s
Cato Minor, Suetonius’s Lives of the Caesars, Lucian’s Demonax, and Philostra-
tus’s Apollonius of Tyana). He compared their opening features, subject, external
features, and internal features and then repeated this comparison for the Syn-
optic Gospels and for the Fourth Gospel. Frickenschmidt presents what he calls
a minor history of the biographical narrative in Greco-Roman literature. Within
the considerable variation with which the lives of leading generals, rulers, and
philosophers are told, there are regularly recurring topoi. They neither occur
in every biographical narrative, nor in a fixed order, and they are confined to
one of the three phases of the narrative: the preparation for a remarkable life
in public, the narration of the public appearance in the middle, and the exit by
death.24 These topoi reflect language convention and illustrate that the texts in
which they occur belong to a family of biographical narratives. Frickenschmidt
based his catalogue of topoi on the study of 142 ancient biographies, ranging
from Herodotus’s Cyrus in the 5th c. BCE up to Iamblicus’s On the Pythagorean
Life from the 3rd–4th c. CE. With the exception of Satyrus’s Euripides, he in-
19 J. Weiß, Das älteste Evangelium: Ein Beitrag zum Verständnis des Markus-Evangeliums
und der ältesten evangelischen Überlieferung (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1903), 14.
20 Weiß, Das älteste Evangelium, 22.
21 For research up the rise of form criticism, see D. Dormeyer, Evangelium als literarische
und theologische Gattung, EdF 263 (Darmstadt: Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft, 1989),
1–75.
22 See n. 12 above.
23 See n. 5 above.
24 Cf. Frickenschmidt, Evangelium als Biographie, 87 and 210.
cludes all the βίοι from Burridge’s list, but he notes that because of their length
and meandering style, biographical novels (Romane) like Iamblicus’s On the
Pythagorean Life, Philostratus’s Life of Apollonius, and Ps.‑Callisthenes’s Life
of Alexander rather belong to the “Wirkungsgeschichte” of the βίος than to the
family of text itself. Differing substantially in form and function from the biog-
raphies, these biographical novels are less important for the comparison with
the gospels. In another respect, Frickenschmidt’s study deviates from Burridge’s:
Using his catalogue of topoi, he does not compare the Synoptic Gospels as a
group to the biographies. Instead, he first compares Mark, then John, and finally
Matthew.25 Luke-Acts is regarded as “biographical-historiographical” work and
treated separately.26
2. A Framework for Comparison

As we noted above, comparisons are steered by the intention of those making the
comparison. Clearly, Frickenschmidt wanted to establish a model to be able to
determine whether a text or group of early Christian texts could be recognized as
part of the family of biographical narratives from Greco-Roman antiquity. Based
on the leading words and adjacent expressions in these texts about prominent
persons, he turned to the gospels to search for this terminology within the
three parts (beginning, middle, end) of the narrative. I suggest that, for a coun-
tercheck, we turn the procedure around and move from the Gospel according to
Mark to selected ancient biographies.
It is not helpful to force analogies in content between Mark and a narrative on
the life of an influential person from antiquity. One can easily list an equal amount
of differences.27 Any effective comparison has to be done within a clearly defined
framework. The framework in which I intend to compare is constructed not
on the basis of what similarities can be found between biographical narrations
from Greco-Roman antiquity, but on the basis of what is typical for Mark as a
narrative.28 Since genre is based on the interplay of function, content, and form,
we will compare some of those formal, content-related, and functional aspects
that are constitutive for Mark as narrative with selected texts that are generally
reckoned to belong to the family of Greco-Roman biographical narratives. Our
purpose is to see if we can find equivalent formal characteristics and functional
25 Frickenschmidt, Evangelium als Biographie, 351–497.

26 Frickenschmidt, Evangelium als Biographie, 498–500.
27 Contra D. Dormeyer, “Plutarchs Cäsar und die erste Evangeliumsbiographie des
Markus,” in Rom und das himmlische Jerusalem: Die frühen Christen zwischen Anpassung und
Ablehnung, ed. R. von Haehling (Darmstadt: Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft, 2000), 29–52,
esp. 40–47.
28 Cf. D. M. Rhoads, J. Dewey, and D. Michie, Mark As Story: An Introduction to the Narra-
tive of a Gospel, 3rd ed. (Minneapolis: Fortress, 2012).
strategies in them.29 Which questions do we ask, what is to be clarified? Do these

texts share those traits that are distinctive in form, content, and function to the
Gospel of Mark as episodic narrative? When there are equivalent distinctive
units, are we able to generalize that which they share? Can we describe how they
differ? Is there enough common ground to include them in the same group? Are
they to be placed in the same cultural context as the Gospel of Mark and if so,
how does it help us to understand Mark better?
3. Ps.‑Soranus’s Life of Hippocrates, Nepos’s De viris illustribus, and Mark:

Comparisons with a Low Heuristic Effect
There is a 500 year gap between Hippocrates of Cos and Ps.‑Soranus of Ephe-
sus’s Life of Hippocrates30 – if the latter had been written in the 2nd c. CE. In only
690 words, the Vita Hippocratis briefly mentions Hippocrates’s genealogy, his
teachers in his native Cos, the dates of his life in relation to the contemporary
events, his resettlement in Thessaly after the death of his parents, his work for Al-
exander’s son Perdiccas and the city of Abdera, and his success of saving Abdera
and Attica from the plague. Of all these things, one could find only one similarity
in Mark, that Jesus is introduced as “Son of God.” Then the Vita turns to the
spread of Hippocrates’s fame, and mentions that he saved his new homeland
Thessaly from imminent attack by the Athenians, notes the honors bestowed
upon him and ends the summary of his life by informing about his age when he
died and the whereabouts of his grave in Larissa. The Vita Hippocratis ends with
a brief discussion why Hippocrates is pictured with his head covered and the
disagreement about which works can reliably be attributed to him, and mentions
his descendants.
Since Norman Petersen’s seminal essay, point of view in Mark’s narrative has
been investigated thoroughly,31 and I pick up just one aspect. The spatial point of
view of the omniscient third person narrator is bound to Jesus. “In” and “there”
is where Jesus is, “into” is where he enters and “out” when he leaves. The narrator
recounts in close proximity to his main character. Scenes with dialogue have a
29 Since this type of comparison should include narratives in their entirety, a fragmentary
text like Satyrus’s Life of Euripides is left aside. See P. Oxy. 9.1176; D. Kovacs, Euripidea, Mnem-
Sup 132 (Leiden: Brill, 1994), 14–27; S. Schorn, Satyros aus Kallatis: Sammlung der Fragmente
mit Kommentar (Basel: Schwabe, 2004), 26–27, 86–113. The brief βίος of Euripides transmitted
in some manuscripts of his plays is a short summary of his life (cf. Kovacs, Euripidea, 2–11) and
not comparable to Mark’s dramatic portrayal of action in his episodic narrative.
30 J. Ilberg, ed., Sorani Gynaeciorum libri IV, De signis fracturarum, De fasciis, Vita Hippo-
cratis secundum Soranum, Corpus medicorum Graecorum 4 (Leipzig: Teubner, 1927), 175–78;
trans. J. R. Pinault, Hippocratic Lives and Legends, Studies in Ancient Medicine 4 (Leiden: Brill,
1992), 7–8; commentary, ibid., 8–18.
31 N. R. Petersen, “‘Point of View’ in Mark’s Narrative,” Semeia 12 (1978): 97–121; Rhoads,
Dewey, and Michie, Mark as Story, 44–46.
kind of conventional equality between narrative time and story time in Mark.
Narrative time of the Vita Hippocratis is only a fraction of the story time. Sum-
marizing Hippocrates’s life, the narrator reports action from a distance, in broad
general terms. From a macro perspective, the “speed” or pace of the narrative
of the Vita Hippocratis is much higher as that of Mark’s narrative.32 Unlike the
narrator in Mark, he also does not take his reader along into individual scenes, but
summarizes events in general from afar, focusing on the main character only.33
Summarizing narration is also typical for other shorter biographical
narratives. Cornelius Nepos’s De viris illustribus leaves one with the impres-
sion that he created individual portraits of the politically influential. After the
introduction, he narrates the highlights of their lives in a summarizing style,
followed by illustrations of their various virtues (Cimon), superior strategy in
battle (Themistocles), generous munificence, virtue, and austerity (Atticus – Sui
cuique mores fingunt fortunam hominibus), but also vices (Pausanias), always
ending with their death.34 Furthermore, that what is so typical for Mark’s epi-
sodic narrative is lacking: the setting of a scene, introduction of characters, and
the narration of their actions – including dialogue – which leads to tension and
its resolution.
In Mark, the narrator quotes the words of Jesus and shows him and those
with whom he engages through dialogue in direct speech. Ps.‑Soranus’s and
Nepos’s plots are simply chronological, from ancestors via birth, life, death to
descendants. Several aspects that are crucial in Mark’s narrative are absent.
There is no prolepsis, no analepsis,35 no dialogue, and no interaction between
characters. To say that they and Mark have a beginning, a middle, and an end
is a triviality. From Aristotle’s Poetica we know that this applies to both epic
and tragic mimesis of action. This threefold structure underpins most texts, and
it is almost self-evident that, in biographical narration, the sequence of these
major events is prescribed by life. When we look into this on an intermediate
level, the chronology of Ps.‑Sonarus’s and Nepos’s narratives reflect the external
chronology of their lives. Modern Markan research on the other hand is almost
32 Cf. Genette, Narrative Discourse, 88–89: “[T]he speed of a narrative will be defined by
the relationship between a duration (that of the story, measured in seconds, minutes, hours,
days, months, and years) and a length (that of the text, measured in lines and in pages).”
33 Cf. Genette, Narrative Discourse, 109: “In novelistic narrative … the contrast of tempo
between detailed scene and summary almost always reflected a contrast of content between
dramatic and nondramatic, the strong periods of the action coinciding with the most intense
moments of the narrative while the weak periods were summed up with large strokes and as if
from a great distance ….”
34 M. Pfeiffer and R. Nickel, eds., Cornelius Nepos: Berühmte Männer / De viris illustribus,
Sammlung Tusculum (Berlin: De Gruyter, 2011). The life of Atticus however (book 25) is
longer and changes from a chronological mode to the narration of actions illustrating Atticus’s
virtuous life before ending with his death by self-imposed starvation.
35 For Mark, cf. D. S. du Toit, “Prolepsis als Prophetie: Zur christologischen Funktion
narrativer Anachronie im Markusevangelium,” WD n. F. 26 (2001): 165–89.
unanimously of the opinion that the chronology of Mark’s narrative does not
reflect the external chronology of Jesus’s life.36
The heuristic value of the comparison between the Vita Hippocratis – and this
applies also to Nepos’s De viris illustribus – and the Gospel according to Mark
is low, its importance to increase our understanding of the Gospel according
to Mark marginal. From its date of origin and provenance, it is unlikely that
the Vita Hippocratis could be part of the cultural memory influencing the pro-
duction or reception of Mark’s text.
4. The Vitae Aesopi and Mark: A Comparison with High Heuristic Effect
The origins of the Vitae Aesopi reach back into imperial times. The oldest
Byzantine manuscript has 13,614 words,37 but this might be a shortened version.
Manuscript G is longer (16,795 words) and is taken to be closer to the lost origi-
nal.38 Several researchers have lamented the lack of literary unity in this lengthy
episodic narrative from the imperial period, but Niklas Holzberg succeeded in
uncovering the underlying structure of this novel in the tradition of the New
Comedy.39 In the first part (1–100),40 the action is set in six different locations,41
in the second (101–123) in the Near East, and finally in Delphi (124–142). In
his structural analysis, Holzberg divides the novel (Roman) into five parts: prior
history (1–19), Aesop and Xantus (20–91), Aesop’s assistance to the people of
Samos (92–100), Aesop coming to the aid of king Croesus of Babylon (101–123),
and Aesop’s failure to save himself in Delphi (124–142).42
Similar to Mark, it tells nothing about Aesop’s ancestors, birth, and upbrin-
ging. However, part 1 differs greatly from Mark because it gives a detailed de-
scription of Aesop’s physical traits. “Aesop’s extreme ugliness becomes a leitmotif
in the Life, absent only in the final section on his death in Delphi.”43 A triple
36 Since W. Wrede, Das Messiasgeheimnis in den Evangelien: Zugleich ein Beitrag zum Ver-
ständnis des Markusevangeliums (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1901), 129–49; Weiß,
Älteste Evangelium, 19–21.
37 Manuscript Westermaniania. Cf. B. E. Perry, Aesopica, vol. 1 (Urbana, IL: University of
Illinois Press, 1952), 81–107; trans. G. Poethke in Das Leben Äsops, ed. W. Müller, Sammlung
Dieterich 348 (Leipzig: Dieterich’sche Buchhandlung, 1974).
38 Manuscript G. Cf. F. Ferrari, ed., and G. Bonelli and G. Sandrolini, trans., Romanzo di
Esopo (Milan: Biblioteca Universale Rizzoli, 1997); trans. L. W. Daly, Aesop Without Morals:
The Famous Fables, and a Life of Aesop (New York: T. Yoseloff, 1961).
39 Cf. N. Holzberg, “Der Äsop-Roman: Eine strukturanalytische Interpretation,” in Der
Äsop-Roman: Motivgeschichte und Erzählstruktur, ed. idem, Classica Monacensia 6 (Tübingen:
Narr, 1992), 33–75, 34–35.
40 We follow Perry, Aesopica.
41 The estate of the landlord (1–15); the house of the slave trader (16–17); on journey to
Asia (18–19); in Ephesus (20); on Samos (20–97 and 100); and in Sardes (98–100).
42 Holzberg, “Der Äsop-Roman,” 41.
principle structures parts 3–5: Aesop solves the problems of three characters of
ascending importance through (a) teaching in monologue or dialogue, or (b) by
unravelling a riddle or accomplishing a difficult task, or (c) by telling a fable.
The teaching of Aesop, whether fable, monologue or dialogue, serves to interpret
the narrative in general.44 To Xantus and Croesus he speaks, or he engages in
dialogue with them, but does not tell fables.45 In section 2, the arrangement of
the episodes is not arbitrarily. Often it is irreversible, for the actions in preceding
episodes motivate those of the next. The narrator starts, e. g., with a sequence in
which he tells how Xantus bought Aesop on the slave market, took him home
and introduced him to his wife (20–33). This is followed by a string of episodes
(34–64), connected by the repetitive action of Aesop to take his owner, the phi-
losopher Xantus, literally “by the word.” Following the exact semantic meaning
of every instruction his master utters, he disregards the pragmatic intention
of the instruction. To the dismay of Xantus, this leads to absurd fulfillment of
the required task.46 A string of episodes in which Aesop solves problems and
helps his master follows (65–91). These two strings of episodes are framed by
two episodes, in which Xantus is required to solve a problem. In the first case
(34–37), a gardener wants an answer to the problem of why natural weeds are
growing better than the vegetables he plants and waters. The philosopher Xantus
says he is not accountable to answer theological questions, for this happens by
divine predestination (35). Aesop, who speaks through the power of Isis and the
Muses, gives the convincing answer that the earth is the caring mother of every-
thing which she brings forth by herself. However, she is a mother-in-law to what
the gardener plants into her (37). The introduction to the second cycle (81–91)
is about the demos of Samos. Just before the hand raising during the election of
the new officials, an eagle snapped the official signet ring (δακτύλιος) belonging
to the people and dropped it in the lap (κόλπος) of a slave. The people of Samos
called on Xantus as sorcerer to explain this sign (σημεῖον). He was unable to
do so, but with his divinatory powers Aesop could again help his philosopher
master to explain a ‘theological’ question. Like the eagle, the powerful Lydian
king Croesus is about to steal the freedom of the Samians and to enslave them
through tribute. In the third part of the Vita, Aesop advises the people of Samos,
helping them to escape the threat of the Lydian king (82–100).
Like Mark’s Gospel the Vita Aesopi is written in an episodic style, but epi-
sodic style is not a definitive trait for biographies only. In his noteworthy essay,
“Creating Plot in Episodic Narratives: The Life of Aesop and the Gospel of
44 Holzberg notes that the use of the fable is restricted to parts 3 and 5, to Aesop’s activity on
Samos and Delphi; Holzberg, Der Äsop-Roman, xiii; idem, “Der Äsop-Roman,” 42.
45 Holzberg, “Der Äsop-Roman,” 41–42.
46 Aesop shows Xantus, e. g., that his “dearest” is not his wife, but it is the house dog; cf.
Perry, Aesopica, 44–46, 49–50.
Mark,”47 Whitney Taylor Shiner has compared the episodic style of the Vita
Aesopi with that of Mark. Mark narrates in a brief style, rapidly narrating action.
The Vita Aesopi is much more colorful and the mimesis of action less condensed
than in Mark. The narrative mode is more scenic, the narrative pace slower, de-
creasing the gap between narrative time and story time.48 Where Mark composes
composite chreia by expanding the dialogue or adding strings of sayings to form
speeches (7:1–13; 8:34–9:1) or arguments (3:22–30), the author of the Vita
Aesopi expands underlying chreiai into narratives told in elaborative detail.49
The interaction is between Aesop and his master Xantus (and his master’s wife).
It illustrates that by shrewd action and by the use of words, the wise slave outwits
the teacher of philosophy. Satirizing philosophy, the work illustrates, through the
narration of Aesop’s actions in episodic style, that naïve wit is superior to philo-
sophical discourse. There are also similarities with Mark’s narrative strategy.
Repeatedly, Xantus fails to outwit Aesop; repeatedly Jesus demolishes the ac-
cusations of the scribes and the Pharisees and other opponents. Where Aesop
outwits with cunning action, Mark’s Jesus wins the argument. His wisdom is
unquestionable (“those who are ill are in need of the doctor, not the healthy,”
2:17; or, “there is nothing outside a person that by going in can defile, but the
things that come out are what defile,” 7:15), and he knows scripture and God’s
intention and power better (cf. 10:5–6; 12:24). Similar to Mark’s Jesus, who acts
on authority of the Spirit that descended into him at baptism, the once-dumb
Aesop has his power of speech from Isis and the power to devise stories and to
conceive and elaborate fables from her nine muses. Mark’s Jesus goes the way as
has been written in the scriptures (9:12–13; 14:21). By divine ordinance, the Son
of Man must suffer (8:31; 9:31; 10:32–34; 14:46). Aesop’s gift of language was
bestowed by the goddess (Vit. Aes. 4–8), and his death in Delphi is by the wrath
of Apollo (100).
Shiner’s essay illustrates how fruitful it can be to compare two literary works
analytically, looking for similarity in form, common narrative strategy, and
mode. The analytical mode of comparison applied to the Gospel according to
Mark and the Vita Aesopi enhances our understanding for the way in which
Mark narrates. Such an analytic comparison allows a distinct profile of Mark’s
own narrative discourse to emerge without forcing it to comply with a model of
Greco-Roman ‘biography’ of one’s own choosing.
47 In Hock, Chance, and Perkins, Ancient Fiction and Early Christian Narrative, 155–76.
48 On this, see Gennete, Narrative Discourse, 88–89.
49 Shiner, “Creating Plot,” 160–62.
5. Lucian’s Demonax and Mark: A Comparison with an Overrated

Heuristic Effect?
In the 2nd c. CE, Lucian started his Demonax (3,103 words) by telling that he
was of higher civic rank and from a wealthy family. He then mentions Demo-
nax’s teachers, his striving for individuality, commitment to liberty and free
speech, and irreproachable lifestyle (3). Lucian describes Demonax’s life and
the character of his philosophy: “He did not mark out for himself a single form
of philosophy but combined many of them, and never would quite reveal which
one he favoured. Probably he had most in common with Socrates, although he
seemed to follow the man of Sinope [sc. Diogenes] in dress and in easy-going
ways.”50 Except for his defence before the assembly when he was accused of not
offering to Athena and having not been initiated in the Eleusinian mysteries,51
Lucian never portrays Demonax’s actions. He rather cites some of his well-
placed and witty sayings. Strung together in four sequences, more than forty
chreiai follow each other.52 They are, however, not integrated into the overall
narrative plot. This is a fundamental difference in comparison to Mark, where
the chreiai are the basic structures behind the majority of episodes. Mark did not
merely add one chreia to the next. They are thematically arranged and integrated
into the actions of the main characters and contribute to the development of the
plot. For even though both Mark and Lucian used chreiai, the way in which they
are used and their function in the overall text can hardly be taken as a point of
similarity. The difference contributes to our understanding of both texts.
Towards the end of his narrative (63), Lucian describes Demonax’s last days
and the Athenians’ affection towards him. Here we find the first chreia integrated
in the narrative plot: “Once when there was a party quarrel in Athens, he (sc. De-
monax) went into the assembly and just by showing himself reduced them to
silence; then, seeing that they had already repented, he went away without a
word.”53 Before telling about Demonax’s funeral, Lucian tells a chreia about how
he reacted when asked what orders he had given for his burial. This is the second
chreia integrated into the larger narrative context.
50 Trans. A. M. Harmon, Lucian, vol. 1, LCL 14 (London: Heinemann; New York: Macmil-
lan, 1913), 145–47.
51 Demon. 11.
52 Note the short classifying introductions in Demon. 26; 39; 48; and 59.
53 Demon. 64, trans. Harmon, LCL 14:171–73.
6. Porphyry’s Vita Pythagorae and Mark: Comparing Summarizing Parallel

Collections and Scenic Narrative Movement
Taken as a whole, Porphyry’s Vita Pythagorae,54 written by the end of the 3rd
c. CE, has the traits of a collection.55 Compared to Mark’s story the Vita has very
different rhythm and its summarizing narrative movement is fast.56 Porphyry
merely summarizes the main periods in Pythagoras’s life in a chronological
order. He rarely characterizes his main figure by depicting his action in dramatic
scenes. All these elements are present in Mark’s story, whose fundamental
rhythm is defined by narrating in dramatic scenes and then closing the sequence
with a summary. In contrast, Porphyry does not develop a plot through the inter-
action of various action sequences; he does not create overarching tension and
resolving suspense. Rather than an overarching developing plot with recurrent
complication and resolution of action dramatically told in episodes and im-
itating action set in scenes, he summarizes parallel traditions about Pythagoras
from Samos.
The Vita starts as a collection about what people like Neanthes, Apollonius,
Samian poets, Duris, Timaeus, Lycus, Eudoxus, Antiphon, and others said about
the birth of this son of Mnesarchus, his teachers, offspring, learning, habits,
travel to Egypt, and return to Ionia to teach (1–9).57
Inserted into his βίος are descriptions of Pythagoras’s influence, his teach-
ings, and his lifestyle. After a brief mention of Pythagoras’s learning acquired
on his travels to the Egyptians, Arabians, Chaldeans, and Hebrews (12), a brief
54 A. Nauck, ed., Porphyrii philosophi Platonici Opuscula selecta, 2nd ed., BSGRT (Leipzig:
Teubner, 1886), repr. (Hildesheim: Olms, 1963), 17–52; É. des Places, ed. and trans., Porphyre:
Vie de Pythagore, Lettre à Marcella, Budé (Paris: Les Belles Lettres, 1982); trans. K. S. Guthrie,
The Pythagorean Sourcebook and Library: An Anthology of Ancient Writings Which Relate to
Pythagoras and Pythagorean Philosophy, ed. D. R. Fideler (Grand Rapids, MI: Phanes, 1987),
123–36.
55 It is to be distinguished in form from Iamblicus’s treatise De vita Pythagorica, which
was written in the 4th c. CE. For the text, see L. Deubner and U. Klein, eds., Iamblichi De vita
Pythagorica liber, BSGRT (Leipzig: Teubner, 1975); trans. M. von Albrecht, in idem, J. Dillon,
M. George, M. Lurje, and D. S. du Toit, Jamblich: Pythagoras, Legende – Lehre – Lebens-
gestaltung, SAPERE 4 (Darmstadt: Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft 2002), 32–212. It is not a
biography of Pythagoras, but a protreptic writing on the Pythagorean way of life, which might
strive to counter the picture of Jesus emerging from the Gospel according to John (Cf. J. Dillon,
“Die Vita Pythagorica – ein ‘Evangelium,’” in von Albrecht, et al., Jamblich, 295–301). For
a comparison to the Gospel according to Luke, cf. D. S. du Toit, “Heilsbringer im Vergleich:
Soteriologische Aspekte im Lukasevangelium und Jamblichs De Vita Pythagorica,” in von Al-
brecht, et al., Jamblich, 275–94.
56 On the notions ‘rhythm,’ ‘narrative movement,’ ‘scene,’ and ‘summary,’ cf. Genette,
Narrative Discourse, 94–95.
57 Diogenes’s diverting account of how Mnesarchus found Pythagoras under the tall poplar
tree, and had him raised and educated, is inserted as an alternative account into the collection
(Vit. Pyth. 10–13). This, however, is not a parallel plot intertwined with the main story as in the
case of John the Baptist and Jesus in Mark, but a mere addendum.
description of Pythagoras’s pupils follows (Astraeus, Zamolxis, Pherecydes,

Eurymenes).
After this digression, Porphyry continues with Pythagoras’s life until he
reaches Croton, where he taught for several years and exerted great influence
(14–18). He takes up the chronological line and summarizes Pythagoras’s
departure from Samos and travel via Delphi and Crete to Italy during which he
gave reverence to Apollo and Zeus (16–17). For his arrival in Croton, Porphyry
refers to Dicaearcus’s account (18), relating that the magistrates summoned
Pythagoras to teach the young men, boys, and women.
From now on Porphyry focuses on the influence and teaching of Pythagoras
(19–42). Drawing large audiences, even from neighbouring barbarians, he
“taught that the soul was immortal and that after death it transmigrates into
other animated bodies.”58 Referring to Nicomachus (20–21), Porphyry hails
the achievements of Pythagoras in a descriptive listing of his initiation of laws
for good governance and his teachings on liberty and common property. These
enhanced the freedom of existing cities and the founding of numerous new
ones. According to Aristoxenus (22), he rooted out strife between the cities and
sedition of families.
There are a few short episodes in the work, for instance the narratives on the
bear (23), the ox (24), and the eagle (25), to illustrate Pythagoras’s influence over
animals or his powers of divination. They can be rather called illustrative than
dramatic scenes.59 However, unlike the episode on how he lost his life in the
latter part of the Vita (54–57), these are not integrated into a developing plot. In-
stead, Porphyry lists Pythagoras’s wondrous deeds (predictions of earthquakes,
suppression of storms, 29), ability to soothe the passions of the soul by rhythms,
songs, and incantations (30), description of the universe and the body (31),
ethical exhortation (32, 38–41), and his care for friends (33). There is ample
information on the food he preferred and why people should abstain from other
kinds of foods (34–35, 43–45). They should not, e. g., eat sexual or reproductive
organs or the feet and heads of victims. Pythagoras, however, does not perform
the teaching set in scenes as in the case of Mark’s Jesus, the topics are listed in
general summaries. It becomes clear that Pythagoras used short maxims. These
sententiae, however, are not integrated into the action of the main character, but
listed and explained by the narrator in one single section:
… pass not over a balance, that is, shun avarice; poke not the fire with a sword, that is, we
ought not to excite a man full of fire and anger with sharp language; pluck not a crown
meant not to violate the laws, which are the crowns of cities.
58 Porphyry, Vit. Pyth. 19; trans. Guthrie, Pythagorean Sourcebook, 126.

59 Cf. Genette, Narrative Discourse, 110–11: “So we are not dealing here with dramatic
scenes, but rather with typical or illustrative scenes, where action … is almost completely oblit-
erated in favor of psychological and social characterization.”
Moreover, Eat not the heart signified not to afflict ourselves with sorrows. Do not sit
upon a [pack]-measure meant, do not live ignobly. On starting a journey, do not turn back,
meant that this life should not be regretted when near the bourne of death. Do not walk in
the public way meant to avoid the opinions of the multitude, adopting those of the learned
and the few. Receive not swallows into your house meant not to admit under the same roof
garrulous and intemperate men. Help a man to take up a burden, but not to lay it down
meant to encourage no one to be indolent, but to apply oneself to labor and virtue. Do not
carry the images of the Gods in rings, signified that one should not at once to the vulgar
reveal one’s opinions about the Gods, or discourse about them. Offer libations to the Gods,
just to the ears of the cup, meant, that we ought to worship and celebrate the Gods with
music, for that penetrates through the ears.60
After diverting to the Pythagorean teaching on numbers (48–53), Porphyry sum-

marizes Pythagoras’s flight from Croton to Delos because of the envy of Cylon,
the murder of the Pythagoreans in Delos and Pythagoras’s flight to Metapontum
and starvation there (54–56). The massacre of the Pythagoreans in the house of
Milo the wrestler is admittedly a dramatic narrative, albeit without the dialogue
in direct speech, so typical for Mark. This story, however, is told twice, first in
the versions of Neathes (55) and then in the more complete version according
to Dicaearchus (56–57), which includes Pythagoras’s escape and journey via
Tarentum to Metapontum where he starved.
Mark presents Jesus as a character acting according to as it was written and
thus fulfilling the will of his father. Developing a dramatic plot, he sets many
actions of Jesus in scene, quoting what Jesus said in that specific episode and
showing the interaction between Jesus and his disciples or opponents through
dialogue in direct speech. Although the narrative rhythm varies, the mode is
predominantly scenic. With a swifter narrative pace Porphyry tells in a sum-
marizing narrative mode what he collected from various authors on Pythagoras’s
life from beginning to the end. The comparison not only highlights the qualities
of Mark as narrator, it also shows that Mark and Porphyry drew on very different
traditions. Porphyry used various written sources, Mark probably put the oral
performances about Jesus into writing.61
60 Porphyry, Vit. Pyth. 42; trans. Guthrie, Pythagorean Sourcebook, 131 (adjusted).
61 Cf. C. Breytenbach, “Das Evangelium nach Markus: Verschlüsselte Performanz?,” in
Reading the Gospel of Mark in the Twenty-First Century: Method and Meaning, ed. G. Van Oyen,
BETL 301 (Leuven: Peeters, 2019), 87–114.
7. Ps.‑Herodotus’s Vita Homeri and Mark: Comparing Different Narrative

Styles
The most extensive extant version of the Vita Homeri62 might draw on classical
predecessors, but could be as late as the 2nd c. CE.63 That Cretheis gave birth to
Homer (she called him Melesigenes) out of wedlock is almost the only parallel
between the rather extensive information about her in the Vita Homeri 1–4 and
the life of the mother of Jesus in Matthew and Luke. Mark places Jesus’s public
appearance after the arrest of John the Baptist (1:14), whilst Ps.‑Herodotus dates
Homer’s (originally Melesigenes’s) birth in Smyrna by referring to the founding
of the city by the Cymaeans, one hundred and sixty eight years after the Trojan
War (38), and relates his arrival at Neon Teichos to the founding date of the
Cymaean colony (9).
The differences in the selection of content for the narration, however, are
considerable. Against other opinion, the Vita Homeri argues that Homer was
an Aeolian (37); for Mark it is undisputed that Jesus is from Nazareth (1:9, 24;
10:46; 14:67) and he only implies that Jesus spent his childhood there (cf. 6:3).
Ps.‑Herodotus (5) praises the noble nature of the young Homer and relates that
he gave up teaching in Smyrna to collect oral tradition and information for his
poetry through extensive travel with the seafaring Mentes to the non-Greek
regions (Tyrsenia), Iberia, and Ithaca (5–7). Losing his eyesight in Colophon,
he returns blind to Smyrna (8). Mark has no interest in Jesus’s upbringing. He
comes as an adult from Nazareth to John the Baptist (1:9). After baptism he
departs as Son of God alone into the desert (1:13). Upon his return into Galilee
(1:14), he immediately starts teaching and healing in Capernaum without
any education but with extraordinary authority (1:21–28). Jesus led the way,
followed by his disciples and a huge multitude, healing the sick (e. g., 1:34;
3:10) and blind (8:22–26; 10:46–52). The blind Homer was led, travelling with
changing company, but deciding where to go next all by himself (e. g., to settle
in Neos Teichos, a Cymaean colony, 9). The course of Jesus’s action is driven
by God who sets the time (1:14; 13:20), determines what “must happen”
62 Text in T. W. Allen, ed., Homeri opera, vol. 5, OCT (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1912),
repr. (1969), 192–218; E. F. Coughanowr, ed. and trans., Herodoti Vita Homeri (Villanova, PA:
Villanova University Press, 1991); trans. in M. R. Lefkowitz, The Lives of the Greek Poets, 2nd
ed. (Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2012), 133–45; and W. Schadewaldt,
Legende von Homer dem fahrenden Sänger (Leipzig: Koehler & Amelang, 1942).
63 Cf. Hägg, Art of Biography, 135: “The main clue to an early date for this particular version
of the Homeric legend is the appearance in the narrative of some fifteen so-called epigrams.
These are pieces of occasional poetry in hexameter, allegedly composed by Homer to meet
the needs of various practical situations, rather as Aesop is figured in the Life telling his fables.
These epigrams can be shown, on linguistic and other grounds, to be post-Homeric, but also
pre-Hellenistic, perhaps as early as the late seventh or the sixth century. Since many are firmly
integrated into the respective episodes of the Life and would make little sense without that pre-
cise biographical context, it follows that the narrative core of the episodes must be ancient too.”
(8:31) “as is written” (e. g., 1:2; 9:12–13; 14:21, 27) and when it should happen
(13:32).
The differences in narrative mode are notable. Mark created short dramatic
episodes following on each other within the short time span of one (e. g., 1:21–
32; 2:23–3:6; 4:1–34) or more days (e. g., 11:27–13:37), the story time barely ex-
tending beyond a year. The narrator hardly refers to extra-textual events beyond
the imprisonment and death of John the Baptist (1:14; 6:16–25) and only occa-
sionally mentions contemporary figures like John (1:4, 6, 9; 2:18; 6:14; 8:28; 9:2;
11:30–32), Herod Antipas (6:14–22; 8:15) and [Pontius] Pilate (15:1–15, 43–44).
Narrating the actions of the disciples and of the scribes, Pharisees, and high
priests, Mark develops literary figures as helpers and opponents of Jesus as main
figure. Ps.‑Herodotus refers to figures whose names are known from Homeric
epic tradition.64 Covering Homer’s long life chronologically, he chose to report
long stays at different locations, narrating encounters with the local population
in summary mode (e. g., 10; 12). With the exceptions of the initial helper Mentes
(6–7), the plagiarizing opponent Thestorides (15–17), and Glaucus from Bolis-
sos (on the western coast of Chios in 21–24), the other characters are depicted
not as individuals, but as groups.65 They are bound to the location of that specific
episodic setting and there is little sign of the development of narrative roles and
interaction between characters, as e. g., between Jesus and Peter in Mark.
From Capernaum, Mark’s Jesus widens the circle of this teaching into the
surrounding Galilean towns, reaching beyond the boundaries to the Phoenician
cities and the shores of the Decapolis. He always returns to the house of Peter and
Andrew to teach his disciples, before travelling with them to Jerusalem, where
he is crucified. Homer’s life is told differently. Upon his return to Smyrna (8),
he decided to compose poetry. He debuted in the Aeolian cities Neon Teichos
(9–10) and Cyme (here he got the name “Homer,” 11–14) and Ionian Phocaea
(15–16). Learning that Thestorides was plagiarizing his poems on Chios, he
decided to sail via Erythraea to Chios (17–19). On Chios, he went to Pitys (20),
Bolissos (24), and the city of Chios. Here he set up a school, taught the children
his poetry, got married, and had children (25–28). Later in his life, he intended
to travel to Greece, spending the winter at Samos (29–33). Setting sail for Athens
in spring, he was brought to Ios, where he died (34–36).
Mark tells his story by portraying action in scenes, dramatically integrating
dialogue and speech. Ps.‑Herodotus embedded poetry attributed to Homer into
his summaries of Homer’s sojourns at the various cities. He cites at least one
poem in every locality (e. g., 9; 11; 14; 17–20; 22), specifying where and when
64 E. g., Odysseus’s friend Mentor in [Herodotus], Vit. Hom. 7 and 26; Tychios in 9 and 26;
Midas in 11; the Kebrenians living next to the Phrygian Mount Ida in 20; Ajax in 26 and 28; and
the famous Athenians Erechtheus and Menestheus in 28.
65 E. g., the members of the Cymaean assembly in [Herodotus], Vit. Hom. 12–14; the fish-
ermen in Erythraea in 19; “the Chain at Bolissos” in 24; a Samian and his tribesmen in 29–33.
Homer composed minor works (e. g., 9; 16; 24), but without integrating the
verse into dramatic action as Mark did with Jesus’s words. The Vita Homeri is
striving “to legitimize the whole epic corpus as the work of Homer.”66 In 26 and
28, Ps.‑Herodotus refers back to incidents told earlier and explains how phrases
from Homer’s poetry can be understood in the light of his life. He thus relates his
narrative to extra-diegetic works. Mark’s Gospel contains the teaching of Jesus as
part of the dramatic action of the narrative and never refers to teaching beyond
that. In the end, the similarities are almost reduced to the fact that both started
out teaching, travelled, and died.
8. Summary
In my brief discussions of the Ps.‑Soranus’s Life of Hippocrates, Nepos’s De viris
illustribus, the Vita Aesopi, Lucian’s Demonax, Porphyry’s Vita Pythagorae,
and Ps.‑Herodotus’s Vita Homeri as different examples of narrative discourse,
I have compared them to the Gospel according to Mark as episodic narrative.
The aspects of narrative structure, mode, rhythm, etc. that were selected were
determined by what is specific to Mark’s narrative and his narration. There are
many other aspects of the Markan narrative however, that I have not attended to,
for instance narrative frequency. At the very beginnings of narrative analysis of
Mark, William Wrede observed that the narrator repeats that Jesus commanded
the demons and the disciples not to reveal his identity as Son of God and Mes-
siah in the so-called “Schweigegebote.”67 In his study of the “summary reports”
(Sammelberichte) Wilhelm Egger noticed that Mark summarizes several actions
of Jesus and other characters in a single narrative utterance.68 As far as frequency
is concerned, Mark used singular, repetitive, and iterative narration.69 These and
other aspects of narrative structure as pro- and analepsis are still unexplored
parameters for comparative studies between the Gospel according to Mark and
analogous texts. Within the limits of this paper however, I will have to leave it
and turn to illustrating comparison.

67 Wrede, Messiasgeheimnis in den Evangelien, 36–51.
68 W. Egger, Frohbotschaft und Lehre: Die Sammelberichte des Wirkens Jesu im Markusevan-
gelium, Frankfurter theologische Studien 19 (Frankfurt am Main: Knecht, 1976).
69 On these types of narration, cf. Genette, Narrative Discourse, 112–16.
D. The Gospel according to Mark and Models

of Greco-Roman Biographies
As Albrecht Dihle, Dirk Frickenschmidt, and Tomas Hägg, I shall not make the
assumption that there was a genre ‘ancient biography.’ One does not need to
deny that there were many narratives of the lives of important persons, and that
these narratives start out by introducing the person and by telling us how he was
prepared for the later, so-important life. Since life ends in death, it is a given that
after telling about the life itself, these stories end with the narration of the death
of the main character. Rather than grouping texts together under an abstract
family tree, I merely intend to compare the text of the Gospel according to Mark
with some of Frickenschmidt’s generic features or the catalogue of analogous
motifs that he regards as typical for the ‘family’ of Greco-Roman biographies.
This, however, merely establishes to what extent the Gospel according to Mark
conforms to or deviates from a general model generated by a modern scholar on
the basis of his or her study of Greco-Roman biographies.
Following Albrecht Dihle,70 Frickenschmidt does not claim that there was
an ancient genre (Gattung) Biographie. This is to be commended, since to claim
that such a model represents a culture-specific genre ‘biography’ and that this
genre had the role of a literary superstructure at the time of the production and
the reception of the Markan narrative is an ambitious claim demanding serious
text-theoretical underpinning.71 To mention just one precondition: if language-
users are to recognize that a specific text they listen to shares distinctive formal
features and characteristic contents with a group of other texts which have an
equivalent function, or to process what they hear in the light of the common
traits of such a group of texts, then they must have the common formal traits,
topics, and persuasive function (superstructure) governing these texts in their
long-term memory as part of their cultural competence. Text-users share texts of
a certain genre when they share language and culture. This they can only do in
a certain time and space.72 It poses a significant problem if the generic features,
abstracted by the researcher, are based on texts covering centuries, several
linguistic communities, and large geographical distances.
According to Frickenschmidt’s description of the ancient biography, its main
topic (Hauptthema) are leading, trendsetting (maßgebliche) persons and values.73
This might be the case, but is this also the case in the Gospel according to Mark?
In his presidential address at the 66th Colloquium Biblicum in Louvain in 2017,
70 Dihle, “Die Evangelien und die griechische Biographie.”

71 Cf. K. Brinker, H. Cölfen, and S. Pappert, Linguistische Textanalyse: Eine Einführung in
Grundbegriffe und Methoden, 8th ed., Grundlagen der Germanistik 29 (Berlin: Eric Schmidt,
2014), 133–52.
72 Cf. Dihle, “Die Evangelien und die griechische Biographie,” 384.
73 Evangelium als Biographie, 211–17.
Geert Van Oyen convincingly demonstrated that from a narrative point of view,
the story of the Gospel of Mark is determined not by Jesus, but by God.74 His
royal reign is imminent, and he has decided that the time for Jesus to act should
now be fulfilled (1:14–15). He also determined how long the suffering should
continue and he has determined the end, when the Son of Man will come (13:32).
Jesus’s teaching reflects God’s intention as creator and God’s determination that
the Son of Man must suffer (8:31). Everything that happens is according to the
Scripture. There is no need to elaborate on this further. To claim that the Gospel
of Mark is primarily about Jesus is a grave misconstrual of the story signified by
the narrative text of the Second Gospel. In the same manner, the values that Jesus
represents are those that God demands in the Scripture. What is authoritative
and decisive for the actions of the characters, Jesus included, is the will of God
(3:35; 14:36).
For those who presuppose the genre ‘biography’ in Greco-Roman literature,
it is a narrative about the life of an important person. Hägg regards it as “very
unorthodox” that Mark’s story covers only a year in the life of Jesus.75 Let us
turn however, to a more detailed argument. Against the background that the
introduction to a biographical narrative informs the readers about the ances-
tors, birth, upbringing, equipment for the task, etc. of the prospective leading
person, Frickenschmidt has analyzed Mark 1:1–13. One can appreciate Fricken-
schmidt’s agreement with Robert A. Guelich that the full stop at the end of verse
1 is inappropriate. Καθώς correlates v. 1 with vv. 2–3, and the new period starts
only in v. 4.76 One could also agree with Frickenschmidt and many before him,
that εὐαγγέλιον does not refer in the Pauline sense to the proclamation about
the death and the resurrection of Jesus Christ, the Son of God. One can agree
that the reading υἱοῦ θεοῦ should be accepted. However, what does this mean?
For Frickenschmidt, this is a signal for Jesus’s origin from God and his close
relationship with God.77 To add filiation after the praenomen and cognomen
is a normal way of identifying an individual. John and James, e. g., are the sons
of Zebedee. It is highly significant that Jesus Christ is introduced as God’s Son.
The identification of someone as son of God is not the type of filiation that one
routinely finds, e. g., on funerary epitaphs. This does not indicate, however, that
we have a biography before us. If one takes vv. 1 and 2 together and reads the
καθώς as correlative, the beginning of the Gospel that comes from Jesus Christ
the Son of God is as it was written in the prophet Isaiah. But what is written in
74 G. Van Oyen, “Du secret messianique au mystère divin: Le sens de la narratologie,” in
idem, Reading the Gospel of Mark, 3–38. See also T. Nicklas, “Mark’s ‘Jesus Story’: A Story About
God,” in The Gospels, History and Christology: The Search of Joseph Ratzinger – Benedict XVI,
ed. B. Estrada, E. Manicardi, and A. Puig i Tàrrech, 2 vols. (Rome: Libreria Editrice Vaticana,
2013), 2:37–62.
76 R. A. Guelich, Mark 1:1–8:26, WBC 34A (Waco, TX: Word, 1989), 7–12.
77 Frickenschmidt, Evangelium als Biographie, 353.
the book of the prophet? God says, “Look! I send my messenger ahead of you,
he who will prepare your way.” Who is the messenger? From v. 3 it is clear: “the
voice of one crying out in the wilderness.” John is meant, he is the one baptizing
and proclaiming in the wilderness, “Prepare the way of the Lord, make his paths
straight.” The beginning of the Gospel refers to the activity of John the Baptist
and qualifies his action as the initial phase of the good news that Jesus Christ the
Son of God proclaims. Frickenschmidt was so occupied with finding the leading
phrases as defining Mark as biography that he shifted the reference of the phrase
ἀρχὴ τοῦ εὐαγγελίου from the activity of John to the life of Jesus.
At this stage, I think it is enough. Like Dihle, I am not convinced that the
Gospel according to Mark starts as a biography. Moreover, it is not about the life
of Jesus, but about the good news he proclaimed.78
E. Conclusion
There is consensus that Mark is a narrative, an episodic narrative. Although

he has included in his narrative smaller narrative genres like parables and
chreiai, the macro-narrative has the traits of a narrative text: a narrator, point
of view or focalization, characterization through mimesis of action in dramatic
episodes. The overall narrative mode is scenic and not summarizing, the pace
intermediate, in direct speech slow. Many more aspects can be added. By call-
ing Markan episodic narrative however, one does not assign Mark to one of
the specific narrative genres of his time. To assign Mark to the ‘biographies,’
or to the ‘novels’ in the tradition of the Hellenistic novel, or to another type
of macro-genre, would presuppose that there is enough consensus among the
scholarly community that such a genre was in use in the context in which Mark
originated. The fact that two of the leading classical scholars who studied ancient
biographies, Albrecht Dihle and Tomas Hägg, deny the existence of a clearly
defined genre before Plutarch, is a serious challenge to the guild of NT scholars.
This debate can only be resolved in collaboration with literary critics stu-
dying Greco-Roman literature. Until this debate is resolved, I suggest that one
compares the Gospel according to Mark as a narrative discourse in the mode of
analytical comparison with individual texts from the Greco-Roman thesaurus of
episodic narrative texts focusing on a main character within the framework of
those traits that are specific to the gospel as episodic narrative.
However, NT scholarship would do well with less of the Darwinism it inher-
ited from the history of religions school. I therefore suggest that in our analytic
comparison, we leave the question of the genealogical relationship between
78 See A. Dihle, Die griechische und lateinische Literatur der Kaiserzeit: Von Augustus bis
Justitian (München: Beck, 1989), 221.
Mark and narrative genres contemporary to the time of the gospel aside, until
we have substantial results from our analytical comparisons. It seems to me that
the analytical comparison needs to pave the way for illustrative comparison, i. e.,
comparing Mark with a genre model.
It is, however, of fundamental importance to remember that Mark comes
first. If possible, Mark, being an episodic narrative, must be assigned to one of
the historical genres. Only then it will become clear whether Matthew and Luke
enhanced or introduced the biographical mode when incorporating Mark into
their narratives.
Mark, the Long-Form Pauline εὐαγγέλιον1
Margaret M. Mitchell
The famous image from the sixth-century Rossano Gospels (Figure 1)2 in grand
style depicts a solemn and cataclysmic moment – the evangelist Mark penning
the very first words of his Greek text onto a scroll. One can quite clearly see the
text offered for our viewing, ΑΡΧΗ ΤΟΥ ΕΥΑΓΓΕΛΙΟΥ ΙῩ ΧῩ ΥΙΟΥ ΤΟΥ ΘῩ3
(complete with three orthographic short-hand nomina sacra), to which both the
evangelist’s stylus and the finger of the inspiring woman – presumably Sophia –
point. “The beginning of the gospel of Jesus Christ, the Son of God.”
What a prophetic statement this incipit proves to be in the history of Christian
literary culture. Mark is the one who brings the ἀρχή, not only to the text that he
is writing in this moment (as the Rossano illuminator has it), but through this
act of narrative composition he will become the leader, first author and exemplar
of Christian prose narrative literature. Mark is, therefore, the ἀρχηγέτης – the
one who brings the beginning – in both of these senses. And yet Mark is not the
inaugurator of the εὐαγγέλιον itself. His Muse for that is a self-styled ἀπόστολος
named Paul.4
As an aid to our own visual inspiration, we turn to a second author portrait in
a fourteenth-century illuminated manuscript in the National Library in Athens
1 In August of 2011, I gave a talk at the Aarhus-Copenhagen conference in Copenhagen
on Mark and Paul, most of the papers of which were published in E.‑M. Becker, T. Engberg-
Pedersen, and M. Müller, eds., Mark and Paul: Comparative Essays, Part II, For and Against
Pauline Influence on Mark, BZNW 199 (Berlin: De Gruyter, 2014), but because I was engaged
in administrative duties at that time, I was not able to revise my paper for publication. The
present paper (a version of which was also presented in February, 2019 at the Midwest SBL
meeting) represents the essential argument I made in Copenhagen, and as I have presented it
in lectures at the University of Chicago over the last decade or more. At the TCU conference
I had the immense pleasure of responding to the learned paper by Prof. Werner H. Kelber.
Because he forefronts the recent book by M. D. C. Larsen, Gospels before the Book (New York:
Oxford University Press, 2018), I have incorporated into some of the notes of the present paper
a careful assessment of some key claims of that book, but I have not attempted a comprehensive
bibliography of the research on Mark, or on Mark and Paul.
2 GA 042 (Σ), fol. 241. Source: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:RossanoGospels
Folio121rStMark.jpg.
3 The reading υἱοῦ τοῦ θεοῦ is attested by A K P Δ f1.13 33. 565. 579. 700. 892. (1241.) 1424.
2542. ℓ 844 𝔐.
4 Who (I have argued) was the inaugurator of early Christian literary culture, see
M. M. Mitchell, Collected Essays, vol. 1: Paul and the Emergence of Christian Textuality: Early
Christian Literary Culture in Context, WUNT 393 (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2017), esp.
xiii–xvi.
202 Margaret M. Mitchell
Figure 1: Rossano Gospels (GA 042 [Σ], fol. 241)
(Figure 2).5 As the Greek legends and the characteristic Pauline physiognomic
iconography6 loudly declare, it depicts the evangelist Luke being inspired by
Paul. Not a mysterious woman, but a male, saintly conductor lies behind this
text, just as he now stands directly behind its author. Here Paul is envisioned as
having inspired a gospel writing – but it is that of Luke.
As is well known, it became traditional from the second century forward to
associate each of the two non-apostolic evangelists (“Mark” and “Luke,” as con-
5 Cod. gr. 151, GA 758, fol. 143v. Source: National Library of Greece (Athens), used by
permission.
6 Bald head, pointed nose, beard, etc.
Mark, the Long-Form Pauline εὐαγγέλιον 203
Figure 2: National Library in Athens, cod. gr. 151, fol. 143v (Luke and Paul)
trasted with “Matthew” and “John”) with one of the two chiefs of the apostles,
Peter and Paul. Usually, as in our image here, it is Luke who was thought to have
been inspired by Paul, based on references to the person Luke in Col 4:14, Phlm
24, 2 Tim 4:11, and the “we” passages of Acts (16:11–16; 20:5–16; 21:1–8; 27:1–
28:16). Indeed, such a now-conventional picture has more recently been featured
in an American film that opened in the United States last year on March 23,
“Paul, Apostle of Christ,” that is focused on Paul’s purportedly intimate relation-
ship with the evangelist Luke.7 For early exegetes this Luke-Paul connection was
also confirmed by Paul’s reference in 2 Cor 8:18 to “the brother who is praised
in the gospel in all the churches” (συνεπέμψαμεν δὲ μετ’ αὐτοῦ τὸν ἀδελφὸν
οὗ ἔπαινος ἐν τῷ εὐαγγελίῳ διὰ πασῶν τῶν ἐκκλησιῶν), taken to be Luke, the
evangelist. Such is the power of Mark’s having moved the term εὐαγγέλιον into
a textual genre that it gets retrojected anachronistically back into the time of
Paul, for whom the εὐαγγέλιον was not a written text, but an oral proclamation
and a δύναμις unto itself (Rom 1:16, etc.). A key moment in the development
was the argument of Irenaeus, based also on Papias’s earlier association of Mark
with Peter as his ἑρμηνευτής, that the two sub-apostolic authors8 (Mark, Luke)
7 In stark contrast, the never-produced screenplay by Pier Paolo Pasolini casts Luke as
Paul’s satan-inspired betrayer (Saint Paul: A Screenplay, trans. E. A. Castelli [London: Verso,
2014], 33, et passim).
8 Recently Larsen has argued that Irenaeus does not consider Mark an author, nor his work
a book, but rather a set of “ὑπομνήματα,” which Larsen regards as always indicating a set of un-
finished notes or “textual raw material” (Gospels before the Book, 7, et passim): “In terms of the
nature of the texts in question, when Irenaeus uses the phrase en bibliō katetheto [sic, en biblō
katetheto], he puts Luke’s composition on a different literary plane from Mark’s with respect
to its textuality. Luke writes in a more elaborate style of writing, one designed to come off as
more timeless than timely. His book is more literary, more ‘bookish.’ Mark’s text, by contrast, is
governed more by speech genres than literary conventions. Irenaeus’s comments on the textual
creation of the Gospel according to Mark confirm this. Neither called a ‘book’ nor labeled as
‘published,’ Irenaeus imagines a figure named Mark who passes down the oral tradition of Peter.
Without the adverb ‘writtenly’ (eggraphōs), we would not even know that the proclamation had
been textualized at all. The Gospel according to Mark is not a piece of literature; it is certainly
not a book. Rather, it is a speech that happens to have become textual object” (Gospels before
the Book, 95). But Larsen has misread the text (Irenaeus, Haer. 3.1.1): “Now, on the one hand,
Matthew circulated among the Hebrews a written form of the gospel at the time that Peter and
Paul were in Rome orally proclaiming the gospel and laying the foundation of the church. And
after their deaths Mark, a disciple and interpreter of Peter, he also in turn handed on to us in
written form the things that were proclaimed orally by Peter. And then in turn Luke, too, the
follower of Paul, set down in a book the oral gospel that was proclaimed by Paul. And then John,
the disciple of the Lord, the one who even reclined at his breast, he also published the gospel
when he was living in Ephesus of Asia” (my trans.). Ὁ μὲν δὴ Ματθαῖος ἐν τοῖς Ἑβραίοις τῇ
ἰδίᾳ αὐτῶν διαλέκτῳ καὶ γραφὴν ἐξήνεγκεν εὐαγγελίου, τοῦ Πέτρου καὶ τοῦ Παύλου ἐν Ῥώμῃ
εὐαγγελιζομένων καὶ θεμελιούντων τὴν ἐκκλησίαν. Μετὰ δὲ τὴν τούτων ἔξοδον, Μάρκος,
ὁ μαθητὴς καὶ ἑρμηνευτὴς Πέτρου, καὶ αὐτὸς τὰ ὑπὸ Πέτρου κηρυσσόμενα ἐγγράφως ἡμῖν
παραδέδωκεν. Καὶ Λουκᾶς δέ, ὁ ἀκόλουθος Παύλου, τὸ ὑπ’ ἐκείνου κηρυσσόμενον εὐαγγέλιον
ἐν βίβλῳ κατέθετο. Ἔπειτα Ἰωάννης, ὁ μαθητὴς τοῦ Κυρίου, ὁ καὶ ἐπὶ τὸ στῆθος αὐτοῦ
ἀναπεσών, καὶ αὐτὸς ἐξέδωκεν τὸ εὐαγγέλιον, ἐν Ἐφέσῳ τῆς Ἀσίας διατρίβων (text A. Rous-
seau and L. Doutreleau, eds. and trans., Irénée de Lyon: Contre les hérésies, Livre III, vol. 2, SC
take on the authority of these two mentors (Peter and Paul, respectively). The
iconography follows suit, adopting the form of the inspired author portrait, the
respective apostolic Muse whispering in the evangelist’s ear from behind. Ac-
cordingly, in this same manuscript (Figure 3)9 the evangelist Mark is depicted as
inspired, not by Paul, but by Peter, as both the Greek names and full head of hair
of the saint in back of our author-evangelist make manifestly clear.
I was only able to locate one possible image in a medieval gospel book – an
Armenian manuscript of the thirteenth century – that may depict Mark as in-
spired by Paul in his composition of this gospel, but this may be a cataloguing
error.10 And yet this is precisely the argument I wish to make here, that Mark was
inspired by Paul. I shall not, however, seek to defend it by legendary association
nor artistic recreation and reimagination, but by a combination of exegetical,
historical, history-of-religions, and literary-theological arguments.11 We are not
211 [Paris: Cerf, 1974], 22–24). When one takes into account the careful parallelism within
Irenaeus’s text (as I have marked the Greek text to show) there is no diminishment of Mark, nor
any attempt to characterize his work as sub-literary (quite the contrary). Nothing in the Greek
accounts for Larsen’s strangely awkward translation of the key line: “After their death, Mark, the
disciple and interpreter of Peter, also passed Peter’s preaching down to us writtenly (eggraphōs)”
(93; n. b., “writtenly” is not found in the OED). The phrase ἐγγράφως ἡμῖν παραδέδωκεν
stands in parallel, not contrast, with those used for Matthew, Luke, and John (γραφὴν ἐκφέρειν
εὐαγγελίου || ἐγγράφως παραδιδόναι || ἐν βίβλῳ κατατίθεσθαι || ἐκδιδόναι τὸ εὐαγγέλιον).
(And why, exactly, would Irenaeus demolish his own argument here in Adv. haer. book 3, by
saying that one of the four in the four-in-one εὐαγγέλιον wasn’t even a book?!)
9 Athens cod. gr. 151, GA 758, fol. 88v. Source: National Library of Greece (Athens), used
by permission.
10 So identified in the plate’s caption in the article by S. S. Manoukian, “L’art du livre en
Cilicie et les traditions byzantines,” in L’Arménie et Byzance: Histoire et culture, Byzantina Sorb-
onesia 12 (Paris: Centre de recherches d’histoire et de civilisation byzantines, 1996), 127–34,
plate 6: “Évangile arménien du xiiie siècle, Mal. 9422. f. 106v: l’évangéliste Marc avec Paul”;
https://books.openedition.org/psorbonne/1806?lang=en. (Mal. is a typo for Mat. = Matena-
daran.) I have not been able to confirm this identification (nor do I see particular identifying
marks within this image), and so I think it is likely Peter and not Paul. This manuscript does
not depict Paul inspiring Luke in his author portrait (as do some other Armenian illuminated
manuscripts), but it has another type, also found in other manuscripts, with Luke accompanied
by Theophilus, his dedicatee; see S. Der Nersessian, Miniature Painting in the Armenian
Kingdom of Cilicia from the Twelfth to the Fourteenth Century (Washington, DC: Dumbarton
Oaks, 1993), 107.
11 J. Marcus played an important role in bringing the question of the Paulinism of Mark
back into the scholarly discussion via his article, “Mark – Interpreter of Paul,” NTS 46 (2000):
472–87, after its hiatus following M. Werner’s 1923 rebuttal of G. Volkmar’s late 19th-c. claims
that Paul is resoundingly found on the pages of Mark’s gospel. Curiously, Marcus’s thesis about
Pauline influence on Mark plays almost no role in his Mark: A New Translation with Intro-
duction and Commentary, 2 vols., AYB 27–27A (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2000,
2009). More recently, see the two edited volumes on Mark and Paul, which represent the current
debates (and stalemates) on the question: O. Wischmeyer, D. C. Sim, and I. J. Elmer, eds., Paul
and Mark: Comparative Essays, Part I, Two Authors at the Beginnings of Christianity, BZNW 198
(Berlin: De Gruyer, 2014); and Becker, Engberg-Pedersen, and Müller, Mark and Paul: Com-
parative Essays, Part II (see n. 1 above). On the history of research and the debates in the late
19th and early 20th centuries, see the fine essay by A. V. Skoven, “Mark as Allegorical Rewriting
Figure 3: National Library in Athens, cod. gr. 151, GA 758, f. 88v (Mark and Peter)
speaking of dictation here, nor, probably, of direct literary borrowing from Paul’s
letters, but of Paul as the major influence (inspiration!) upon Mark’s vocabulary,
religious conceptualizations, logic, daring claims, and theological poetics.12
For this we may claim a second Muse, Albrecht Dürer, who in his famous
diptych “Die Vier Apostel” (Figure 4) from 1526,13 at the ἀρχή of the Reforma-
tion, set Paul and Mark together in a panel (opposite the evangelist John and a
receding apostle Peter on the left). What is unaccountable, given Dürer’s title,
is why he includes Mark among the apostles. But Mark’s alignment with Paul –
both portrayed as authors with a scroll or a book, both breathing the same air,
and Mark making eye contact with his Muse (but not taking dictation from
him) – is the image I wish to press into our minds for the relationship between
Mark and Paul.
It is fitting to think with images (medieval and early modern) about the
problem of the relationship between Paul and Mark, because, in my view,
Mark enacted a media revolution on what was already an astonishing media
claim made by “the apostle Paul.” Mark not only transformed an oral kerygma
(εὐαγγέλιον) into writing,14 but he transferred a set of maverick claims for me-
diated Christophanies in words, in body, in rituals of baptism and thanksgiving
meal, in ethics, and in trans-local, trans-generational community – that were
characteristic of the Pauline Gentile Christ-believing mission – into long-hand
narrative form. Paul claimed, astoundingly and controversially, that his very
body and life were media for the communication of the εὐαγγέλιον of Christ’s
death and resurrection, for presenting Christ crucified right before the eyes of
the beholder – although in Paul’s view many did not understand what this truly
meant (see, e. g., 2 Cor 4:3, εἰ δὲ καὶ ἔστιν κεκαλυμμένον τὸ εὐαγγέλιον ἡμῶν,
“although our gospel proclamation is hidden”). In Gal 6:17 Paul declares, ἐγὼ
of Paul: Gustav Volkmar’s Understanding of the Gospel of Mark,” in ibid., 13–27, who em-
phasizes that, while Werner accused Volkmar of “allegorizing” Mark, the latter did not use that
term, but spoke of the “poetics” (“Poësie”) of the work.
12 See M. M. Mitchell, “Epiphanic Evolutions in Earliest Christianity,” Illinois Classical
Studies 29 (2004): 183–204, 191–94; and “The Emergence of the Written Record,” in The Cam-
bridge History of Christianity, vol. 1: Origins to Constantine, ed. F. M. Young and M. M. Mitchell
(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2006), 177–94, 185–86. Both are now collected, with
a brief, synthetic introduction that connects some of these dots between Paul and Mark, in
Mitchell, Paul and the Emergence of Christian Textuality (respectively, 237–55, 246–48; 1–18,
9–11), along with the essay (at 111–32), “Rhetorical Shorthand in Pauline Argumentation: The
Functions of ‘The Gospel’ in the Corinthian Correspondence,” in Gospel in Paul: Studies on
Corinthians, Galatians and Romans for Richard N. Longenecker, ed. L. A. Jervis and P. Richard-
son, JSNTSup 108 (Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 1994), 63–88, which is the basis for my
argument about Paul’s (and Mark’s) “synecdochical logic,” or “synecdochical hermeneutics.”
(References to these articles below are to the pp. in my collected essays.)
13 Source: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Vier_Apostel_(Albrecht_Duerer).jpg.
14 For excellent insights into the convergence of the fuller senses of εὐαγγέλιον between
Mark and Paul, see the earlier essay by W. Marxsen, Mark the Evangelist: Studies in the Redac-
tion History of the Gospel, trans. J. Boyce, et al. (Nashville: Abingdon, 1969), 117–38.
Figure 4: Albrecht Dürer – “Die Vier Apostel”
γὰρ τὰ στίγματα τοῦ Ἰησοῦ ἐν τῷ σώματι βαστάζω (“for I bear in my own body
the branding marks of Jesus”), which should be read with Gal 2:19, Χριστῷ
συνεσταύρωμαι (“I have been co-crucified with Christ”). But in these claims
to co-crucifixion Paul is insisting that his own suffering body, as one part, is to
be viewed in relation to the whole, the sacred story he calls the εὐαγγέλιον (2
Cor 4:11, ἀεὶ γὰρ ἡμεῖς οἱ ζῶντες εἰς θάνατον παραδιδόμεθα διὰ Ἰησοῦν, ἵνα
καὶ ἡ ζωὴ τοῦ Ἰησοῦ φανερωθῇ ἐν τῇ θνητῇ σαρκὶ ἡμῶν, “For we, the living,
are always handed over to death for the sake of Jesus, so that also the life of
Jesus might be manifested in our mortal flesh”). Hence his own suffering body
as Christophanic medium, by means of synecdoche (i. e., whole for part), Paul

astonishingly claims, is itself an IMAX screen on which the resurrection and the
full narrative thereby encompassed are displayed (see, e. g., 2 Cor 4:10, πάντοτε
τὴν νέκρωσιν τοῦ Ἰησοῦ ἐν τῷ σώματι περιφέροντες, ἵνα καὶ ἡ ζωὴ τοῦ Ἰησοῦ
ἐν τῷ σώματι ἡμῶν φανερωθῇ, “Always carrying around the dying of Jesus in
the body, so that also the life of Jesus might be manifested in our body”). Paul
regarded himself as a one-man multi-media parade of Jesus Christ crucified15
(and risen).16
The Gospel of Mark seeks to enact this very epiphanic economy in a
narrative form presented in simply-styled Koinē Greek by which Jesus Christ
crucified is προεγράφη (“publicly placarded” [with Paul’s Gal 3:1]) before the
eyes, ears, and hearts of the hearers/readers, and they are called to a similar,
cruciform life (Mark 8:34, εἴ τις θέλει ὀπίσω μου ἀκολουθεῖν, ἀπαρνησάσθω
ἑαυτὸν καὶ ἀράτω τὸν σταυρὸν αὐτοῦ καὶ ἀκολουθείτω μοι, “If anyone wishes
to follow after me, let them deny themselves and take up their cross and follow
me”)17 that is cast in the very terms Paul had claimed for his own religious
authority – becoming co-crucified with Christ (Gal 2:19). Mark has fully inter-
nalized this understanding of the Christ-cult’s “epiphanic logic,” and his vividly
written prose narrative placards or billboards Christ crucified before the eyes
of its readers, who, unlike virtually all those present at the narrativized scene,
understand that Jesus is, in fact, precisely what his mockers unwittingly pro-
claim (and more): Israel’s Messiah, king and prophet (8:29; 14:61–65), and
the Romans’ true emperor, whom the Roman cohort honors with the purple
(15:16–20) and their centurion salutes with the acclamation of divine sonship
(15:39, ἀληθῶς οὗτος ὁ ἄνθρωπος υἱὸς θεοῦ ἦν, “Truly this man was god’s
son”).18 Markan irony about the crucifixion, narrativized in direct discourse
placed on the mouths of stock protagonists, replicates Paul’s own view of the
ἄρχοντες τοῦ αἰῶνος τούτου (“the leaders of this age”), who did not recognize
15 I use this phrase also in Mitchell, Paul and the Emergence of Christian Textuality, xiv.
16 See esp. 2 Cor 2:14–17 and broader context for the “procession” or “parade” motif; see
also the important studies of P. B. Duff, “Apostolic Suffering and the Language of Processions in
2 Corinthians 4.7–10,” BTB 21 (1991): 158–65; “Metaphor, Motif, and Meaning: The Rhetorical
Strategy behind the Image ‘Led in Triumph’ in 2 Cor 2:14,” CBQ 53 (1991): 79–92.
17 The Pauline influence on this passage in Mark is cogently argued by T. Engberg-Pedersen,
“Paul in Mark 8:34–9:1: Mark on What It Is to Be a Christian,” in Becker, Engberg-Pedersen,
and Müller, Mark and Paul: Comparative Essays, Part II, 189–209.
18 An acclamation that may have an added layer of irony after the destruction of the temple
in Jerusalem, as Jesus had foretold (as Mark understands it: 13:2; 14:58), at the hands of “the
divine Titus, son of the divine Vespasian” (quoting here the words of the inscription on the arch
of Titus in Rome, dedicated in 81 CE, which commemorates the destruction of Jerusalem and
the triumphal procession of its booty through the streets of Rome in 71 CE). On the Roman
provenance of Mark, see B. J. Incigneri, The Gospel to the Romans: The Setting and Rhetoric of
Mark’s Gospel, BibInt 65 (Leiden: Brill, 2003), and the perceptive review of W. R. Telford in JTS
58/1 (2007): 206–14.
the divine plan (θεοῦ σοφία): εἰ γὰρ ἔγνωσαν, οὐκ ἂν τὸν κύριον τῆς δόξης
ἐσταύρωσαν, “for if they had known, they would not have crucified the Lord of
glory” (1 Cor 2:7–8).
Mark introduces his work with the phrase ἀρχὴ τοῦ εὐαγγελίου Ἰησοῦ
Χριστοῦ [υἱοῦ θεοῦ].19 And, like Paul, Mark has the εὐαγγέλιον figure as a
character in its own narrative, such that the success of the mission is itself a
part of the story. We can see this, for example, in Paul’s own reference back-
wards in Phil 4:15 to ἐν ἀρχῇ τοῦ εὐαγγελίου, “in the beginning of the gospel,”
within his own mission, or forward in Rom 2:16 to its place in the eschatolog-
ical judgment: ἐν ἡμέρᾳ ὅτε κρίνει ὁ θεὸς τὰ κρυπτὰ τῶν ἀνθρώπων κατὰ τὸ
εὐαγγέλιόν μου διὰ Χριστοῦ Ἰησοῦ, “On the day when God judges the hidden
deeds of people according to my gospel through Messiah Jesus.” This is quite
similar in characterization (i. e., of the gospel as itself a character within its
own story) to Mark’s proleptic references on the lips of Jesus to the later gospel
proclamation that will take place beyond the pages of his text, in 13:10, καὶ εἰς
πάντα τὰ ἔθνη πρῶτον δεῖ κηρυχθῆναι τὸ εὐαγγέλιον (“and it is necessary first
for the gospel to be proclaimed to all the nations/Gentiles”); and 14:9, ὅπου
ἐὰν κηρυχθῇ τὸ εὐαγγέλιον εἰς τὸ ὅλον τὸν κόσμον (“wherever the gospel
might be proclaimed into the whole world”).20 The evangelist not only uses
the same key term Paul employs for his oral proclamation to characterize his
written narrative in 1:1 – εὐαγγέλιον – but he uses it in a thoroughly and dis-
tinctively Pauline way, to refer both to the episodic narrative of Christ dead and
raised, and to the role of that missionary εὐαγγέλιον itself in the story up to
and even at the παρουσία and final judgment before the throne of Christ (cf. 2
Cor 5:10).21
19 Although lacking in ‫ *א‬and Θ, the reading with υἱοῦ θεοῦ is better attested in Greek man-
uscripts, versions, and patristic allusions, and more likely authentic (see the strong arguments
of T. Wasserman, “The ‘Son of God’ Was in the Beginning [Mark 1:1],” JTS 62 [2011]: 20–50),
though the issue is famously and massively disputed (the two more recent scholarly editions of
the Greek NT are split, with SBLGNT [ed. M. W. Holmes] adopting the minus, and THGNT [ed.
D. Jongkind, et al.] adopting the plus; I replicate above the brackets of NA28).
20 We can add to this the internal choice to have Jesus call on the hearer/reader to μετανοεῖτε
καὶ πιστεύετε ἐν τῷ εὐαγγελίῳ (1:15).
21 For the correspondence between Mark and Paul in their terminology for the gospel/
kerygma/missionary speech and its usage, see τὸ εὐαγγέλιον (Mark 1:1; 1:4–15; 8:35; 13:10;
14:9), or ὁ λόγος, absolute, to refer to the proclamation (Mark 4:14–15; 1 Thess 1:6; 2 Cor
2:17; Gal 6:6; Phil 1:14); also ὁ λόγος τοῦ θεοῦ (Mark 7:13; rare in LXX, surprisingly [Jer 1:2;
9:19; and Prov 31:8, but one or both nouns indefinite]; cf. 1 Thess 2:13 [indef.]; Rom 9:6; 1
Cor 14:36; 2 Cor 4:2; Col 1:25); ἀκοή in reference to the gospel message and its reception
(Mark 1:28; cf. 1 Thess 2:13; Gal 3:2, 5; Rom 10:16–17). Strikingly, the words on the mouth of
Jesus in Mark 1:14–15 are the self-referential call to believe in the τὸ εὐαγγέλιον that is about
himself. In the phrasing of an earlier debate in NT studies, in Mark the proclaimer is the pro-
claimed, as the Jesus of the past is merged by Mark – as by Paul – with the Jesus epiphanically
mediated by text, community, scriptures (LXX), ritual, and ethical imitation.
For Paul, the εὐαγγέλιον is an episodic narrative about what God has done
in history, with a special (but not sole) focus on Jesus as God’s Son who died on
a cross and was raised from the dead. Paul’s εὐαγγέλιον can be contained in two
episodes, such as in 1 Thess 4:14, Χριστὸς ἀπέθανεν καὶ ἀνέστη (“1. Christ died,
and 2. he rose up”), or in four (or four, plus) as in 1 Cor 15:3–8, Χριστὸς ἀπέθανεν
… ἐτάφη … ἐγήγερται … ὤφθη … (ὤφθη … ὤφθη) (“1. Christ died …, 2. he was
buried …, 3. he has been raised …, 4. he appeared … he appeared …”). It is some-
times told in longer-hand, as here in 1 Cor 15:1–8, and at others in various forms
of short-hand, as necessary to incorporate that full narrative into letters that
bear complex arguments about the meaning, significance, interpretation, and
application of that εὐαγγέλιον. Paul’s letters reference (e. g., 1 Thess 1:9–10),
but do not recount in full, his εὐαγγέλιον, which he presumes, and he assumes
his readers know. Paul uses the word εὐαγγέλιον itself as a “super-abbreviation”
that refers to the entire narrative of the salvation story,22 which is itself a flexible
accordion that can be stretched out temporally by Paul in both directions to
encompass other episodes – back to Abraham, or Adam, or creation itself,23 and
forward to the proclamation of the gospel to the Gentiles, to the co-crucifixion of
Jesus-believers, to the rising of οἱ νεκροὶ ἐν Χριστῷ just before the ἁρπαγή that
will snatch both them and the living up for the ἀπάντησις τοῦ κυρίου in the air
(1 Thess 4:16–17). Paul’s multi-episodic εὐαγγέλιον can also be encapsulated
by him in a single event that, by metonymy or synecdoche, refers to and char-
acterizes the whole, such as ὁ λόγος τοῦ σταυροῦ (“the word of the cross”) in
1 Cor 1:18 (cf. Gal 6:14), or the terse formula Χριστὸς ἐσταυρωμένος (“Christ
crucified”; 1 Cor 1:23; 2:2), which does not isolate the crucifixion, but calls down
the entire gospel narrative of Christ crucified and raised as κατὰ τὰς γραφάς (“in
accordance with the Scriptures”; 1 Cor 15:3–4, twice).
Mark was the ἀρχηγέτης who set out to render the Pauline oral gospel
episodic narrative for the first time into a written long-form24 episodic narra-
tive.25 As with Paul, the εὐαγγέλιον that Mark tells in his long-hand prose
narrative26 can be compressed into compact summary formulations, as in the
22 See Mitchell, “Rhetorical Shorthand.”

23 I am not able to develop this theme here, but Mark, like Paul, also extends his narrative
backwards to the ἀρχὴ κτίσεως (10:6; 13:19).
24 I use the term long-form in line with the definition in the OED : “adj. designating a longer
piece of writing, entertainment, or anything which usually also has a shorter form” (https://oed.
com/view/Entry/109975?redirectedFrom=long-form#eid1182205040). Elsewhere in this essay
I use the term “long-hand,” which does not appear in OED, but which I mean as an antonym to
“short-hand,” and hence essentially a synonym for “long-form.”
25 This proposal, by emphasizing the commonality of Paul and Mark in a narrative concep-
tualization of the εὐαγγέλιον, allows one both to see Mark’s media revolution of rendering the
narrative in full in writing, and to account for the difficulty in how to compare letters and gospel
(on which problem, see the “Introductory Remarks” by Becker, Engberg-Pedersen, and Müller
in Mark and Paul: Comparative Essays, Part II, 1–10, 2–3).
26 The genre of Mark, therefore, is διήγησις, narrative – precisely what Luke calls it in his
mis-named “passion predictions” in Mark 8:31, 9:31, and 10:33–34, which are

actually Pauline-like synecdochical death-and-resurrection gospel short-hands,
especially in the tell-tale δεῖ (Mark 8:31),27 which corresponds exactly to Paul’s
κατὰ γὰς γραφάς. Mark’s central focus on the death of Christ is unmistakable in
the work. Although scholars have contested Martin Kälher’s famous description
of Mark as “a passion narrative with a long introduction,”28 he was not entirely
wrong. The cross hangs over the entire narrative, at the least from 1:14, where
the ignominious word Paul also uses for Christ’s betrayal and handing-over to
own preface (1:1). In my view it is not a βίος (as argued vigorously and consistently for the last
twenty-five years by R. A. Burridge for all four canonical gospels; see his What Are the Gospels?
A Comparison with Graeco-Roman Biography, 3rd ed. [Waco, TX: Baylor University Press,
2018]), though it has “biographic” elements that were to inspire Matthew and Luke to move
it further into a biographical direction. A. Yarbro Collins proposed (Mark: A Commentary,
ed. H. W. Attridge, Hermeneia [Minneapolis: Fortress, 2007]) that Mark is “an eschatological
historical monograph”; “a historical monograph that focuses on the deeds of Jesus” (42), with
features of didactic and historical biography (33). Perhaps most telling, however, is that Yarbro
Collins’s aggregative proposal combining history, biography, and monograph (carefully laid out
in the introduction, 15–43) plays virtually no role in the body of the commentary itself, and
hence has little heuristic value. Larsen denies outright that Mark is an episodic narrative (Gospels
before the Book, 127: “Mark did not write an ‘episodic narrative …,’” quoting R. H. Gundry,
Mark: A Commentary on His Apology for the Cross [Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1993], 1046);
cf. Larsen, Gospels before the Book, 123: “Texts like hypomnēmata, however, do have a logic to
their organization, but the logic of unfinished notes differs from the logic of a finished book
or an episodic narrative”). The proof Larsen offers for Mark not being an episodic narrative is
that scholars cannot reach a “clear consensus” on its outline (an inference that of course does
not follow logically). Instead, he argues, “I note a different kind of structure, one that does not
presuppose the logic of monological authorial genius, but one that is in keeping with the or-
ganization of hypomnēmata” (127). Mostly what this consists in is Stichworte and “bracketing
structure,” features that, as Larsen acknowledges, scholars have long noted in Mark (128). What
Larsen does not prove, however, is that such patterns, even if one may acknowledge that they
can be used in “note collections,” are unique to hypomnēmata, and lacking in episodic narrative
(which comparative literary study would show they are not). Later (at 133) Larsen equivocates,
“Of course, while a note-like organization pervades the text, the Gospel according to Mark does
in fact have some narrative logic to it.” And yet he repeats his refrain, “So, while the Gospel
according to Mark is not a narrative (diēgēsis), it does have narrative logic to it. One need not
think in binary terms” (133, but see 123 and 127, quoted above, for the governing “binary terms”
on which Larsen has built his argument – i. e., Mark is unfinished notes, not episodic narrative).
It is impossible to have it both ways on this key premise of his argument. Mark is indisputably
an episodic narrative, that includes techniques of foreshadowing, prophecy, and fulfillment. It
has “narrative logic” because it is a narrative. That does not mean, however, that its author was
a “monological authorial genius” (rather an exaggerated caricature!). One of the things that is
striking about this episodic narrative (Mark) is its combination of literary ambition and simple,
even clumsy style.
27 The Markan δεῖ of 8:31 is framed by the opening in 1:2 (καθὼς γέγραπται) and the
scripturally rich passion scene in 15:22–39, with special reference to Psalm 22; hence, as with
Paul, κατὰ γὰς γραφάς is a dominant theme and hermeneutical key of the εὐαγγέλιον. Like
Paul’s, Mark’s εὐαγγέλιον has a narrative shape because it is dependent upon the larger scrip-
tural narrative of the LXX.
28 M. Kähler, The So-Called Historical Jesus and the Historic Biblical Christ, ed. and trans.
C. E. Braaten (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1964), 80 n. 11.
death (παραδιδόναι, in 1 Cor 11:23, ἐν τῇ νυκτὶ ᾗ παρεδίδετο, “on the night on

which he was handed over”) is used, in a clearly foreshadowing way, for John
the Baptist (μετὰ δὲ τὸ παραδοθῆναι τὸν Ἰωάννην, “And after John was handed
over”), only to be used in more and more intensive ways as the narrative of John’s,
and then Christ’s, handing-over unfolds (see 3:19; 9:31; 10:33; 14:10, 11, 18, 21,
41, 42, 44; 15:1, 10, 15). Mark’s narrative, via its vivid description of actions and
words, is a literary icon of Jesus Christ crucified;29 its goal is epiphanic access for
the reader into the heart of the εὐαγγέλιον, even as such is denied emphatically
for the actors on the scene. As with the contested sign of Paul’s weak and sickly
body, Mark’s Jesus in his gospel narrative is presented as a locus of (oxymoronic)
“secret epiphanies”30 for those who can understand the revolving door logic of
the kerygma – weakness is strength, death is life (cf. 2 Cor 4:10–12; 12:9–10;
13:4; etc.). Mark ekphrastically paints in full color this extended narrative of
Ἰησοῦς Χριστὸς ἐσταυρωμένος.
In this he resembles the author portrait of Luke (not Mark; again, I am
seeking to reassign some of the insights of these traditional portraits) by Lukas
Cranach, in the Lutherbibel (1532) (Figure 5), in which the evangelist-artist
gazes on an icon of Christ crucified through an open window, and paints it with
words on his tablet. As with Cranach’s evangelist Luke, the evangelist Mark
painted a portrait of the central narrative episode of the cross that offers the
meaning to the whole, from creation through the eschaton. Above all, the shared
synecdochical hermeneutics31 (as I call it) between Paul and Mark can explain
Mark’s famously enigmatic ending.32 It is clearly not the case that there is “no
resurrection in Mark,” as is sometimes simplistically mischaracterized, because
Christ’s resurrection is declared emphatically in the indicative pronouncement
29 Phrasing from Mitchell, “Epiphanic Evolutions,” 248; cf. eadem, Paul and the Emergence
of Christian Textuality, xv.
30 The memorable description of M. Dibelius, From Tradition to Gospel, trans. B. L. Woolf
(New York: Scribner, 1935), 230.
31 I have defined this phrase (and its synonym, synecdochical logic) as follows: “every
time one episode of the foundational narrative is named, the others are thereby assumed and
incorporated. Baptism is the lynchpin by which individual ‘life narratives’ become grafted onto
the meta-plot of Christ’s death and resurrection” (from Mitchell, “Epiphanic Evolutions,” 245
n. 27).
32 Larsen, Gospels Before the Book, 133, proposes a novel theory by which “the oddness of
the story of 16:1–8 diminishes.” “It is a bad conclusion to a narrative. It is a good closing bracket
to a set of notes about Jesus in Jerusalem, his death, and the temple, because it tells of Jesus
returning from Jerusalem to Galilee, without assuming that the end of the text is the end of a
book.” But the “notes” about Jesus in Jerusalem, and especially the carefully crafted intercalated
episodes of the betrayal by Judas, the denial of Peter, the two trials (Sanhedrin, Pilate) and
the two mockings seem not only to have a simple “narrative logic” of beginning, middle, and
end, but also a much more deliberate attempt to order the material to establish an unfolding
narrative that integrates the episodes, and fashions the whole, with expectations, surprises, and
a dénouement at 15:39. And the scene at the tomb (16:1–8) makes direct reference to an earlier
narrative episode at 14:28 (cf. 8:31; 9:9, 31; 10:32–34).
Figure 5: Lukas Cranach, author-portrait of Luke from the Lutherbibel (1532)
by the νεανίσκος: ἠγέρθη (“he has been raised!”, as is its counterpart – Ἰησοῦν
ζητεῖτε τὸν Ναζαρηνὸν τὸν ἐσταυρωμένον, “You seek Jesus the Nazarean, the
crucified one”). The appearances (Paul’s ὤφθη sentences in 1 Cor 15:4–8) are not
narrated here, but they are included by implication and foreshadowing (προάγει
ὑμᾶς εἰς τὴν Γαλιλαίαν· ἐκεῖ αὐτὸν ὄψεσθε), because what makes it εὐαγγέλιον
is that the one implies the other, i. e., the death implies the resurrection (which is
precisely the same as Paul). And the reason the resurrection appearances are not
narrated is that they lie outside the long-hand of the narrative now being told,
even as they are signaled loudly in the short-hands of each of the three “passion-
and-resurrection-predictions” and, above all, in 14:28 on the lips of the most
reliable narrator of all (aside from God, of course): ἀλλὰ μετὰ τὸ ἐγερθῆναί με
προάξω ὑμᾶς εἰς τὴν Γαλιλαίαν (“but after I am raised, I shall go before you into
Galilee”), as well as in 9:9, ὅταν ὁ υἱὸς τοῦ ἀνθρώπου ἐκ νεκρῶν ἀναστῇ (“when
the son of man rises from the dead”).33
Mark’s choice not to include narratives of the appearances is fully consis-
tent with the “epiphanic logic” of his inspiration, Paul. As for Paul himself, he
claimed that he was ἐλάχιστος τῶν ἀποστόλων (1 Cor 15:9) – both least in
33 See the classic and still stunning article by N. R. Petersen, “When Is the End Not the End?
Literary Reflections on the Ending of Mark’s Narrative,” Int 34 (1980): 151–66.
honor and last in line – but nonetheless every bit as much an apostle as they,
due to his “working harder than them all” (15:10) and because the basis of his
apostolic authority, he consistently claimed, was his receipt of a vision of Christ
Jesus as risen Lord (9:1, οὐκ εἰμὶ ἀπόστολος; οὐχὶ Ἰησοῦν τὸν κύριον ἡμῶν
ἑόρακα; “Am I not an apostle? Have I not seen Jesus our Lord?”).34 For Paul, the
εὐαγγέλιον-ambassadors (i. e., ἀπόστολοι) are commissioned and authenticat-
ed in their resurrection visions, which is precisely how Mark leaves his narrative.
As in Paul’s vehement argument in Galatians (1:17–2:10), the “pillars” (στῦλοι)
Peter, James, and John, are respected by the evangelist Mark, but they have yet
to prove themselves worthy within the pages of the long-form narrative. And
they have shown themselves to be dunderheaded precisely where Paul will best
them: they do not understand about either Christ’s death (8:32–33; 14:17–21)
or his resurrection (9:9–10) as God’s plan, i. e., the εὐαγγέλιον. Nor do they
comprehend and support the Gentile mission (8:14–21), which is the future of
the εὐαγγέλιον whose ἀρχή Mark narrates (13:10), especially through his sym-
bolic geography that twins Christ’s mission and miracles on both sides of the
sea of Galilee, in Jewish and “Gentile” territory (1:21–10:52).35 It is only looking
beyond that narrative ἀρχή that the στῦλοι Peter, James, and John – who mis-
understand both on sea (supposedly where fishermen from Galilee should excel!)
and on land (epically in an olive grove in Jerusalem, on the cusp of the unfolding
death, 14:32–42) – will stand on the same footing as Paul, and with the same
legitimizing basis in the resurrection appearance that they had witnessed, and
that even Paul acknowledges in 1 Cor 15:3–7. But there is not a special credit
for having known Jesus in his lifetime, which Mark’s gospel emphatically denies
in word and action through its recital of the epistemic failures of those closest
to Jesus in his lifetime. Mark, like Paul, dares, not to bring Paul up to the level
of οἱ πρὸ [αὐτοῦ] ἀπόστολοι (Gal 1:17), but to bring those earthly disciples of
Jesus into the Pauline epiphanic economy that privileges, not historical primacy
nor proximity to Jesus, but kergymatic envoyage that embodies the εὐαγγέλιον
through various media in life and in death (e. g., the prophecy about James and
John and the “baptism in blood” in Mark 10:35–40).36
One of the ways in which Mark shows his indebtedness to his Muse, Paul, is
by including, within his narrative, moments of synecdochical self-referentiality
about the story he is narrating. I have mentioned above those proleptic com-
ments about the future of the missionary εὐαγγέλιον (13:10; 14:9), flashes from
34 The very same logic is at work in Gal 1:12–16.
35 As argued persuasively by W. H. Kelber, Mark’s Story of Jesus (Philadelphia: Fortress,
1979), 30–42.
36 Note the irony, therefore, in Mark 14:31 that, though Peter says he will συναποθανεῖν
with Christ (cf. Paul’s claim in Gal 2:19), he explicitly fails to do so. While by later martyrdom
Peter may meet this promise, we should not assume that the earliest apostles/disciples of Jesus
saw their religious commitment in these Pauline terms, of being “co-crucified with Christ” in
the present life.
the future. But the Pauline gospel short-hand mechanics are found also in the
teachings Mark puts on the lips of Jesus in his long-form narrative. Paul does
not dwell long on Jesus’s teaching in his extant letters, as is well known. But his
“big three” (I would say) are all found prominently within Mark’s gospel – for-
bidding divorce (1 Cor 7:10–11; Mark 10:2–9), paying what is due to Caesar and
to God (Rom 13:1–8; Mark 12:13–17), and the greatest commandment of love
(Rom 13:8–9; Mark 12:28–34; cf. 10:17–21). Beyond that, however, the parabler
Jesus of Mark’s pages is a self-revealer who reveals the εὐαγγέλιον itself. As with
Pauline rhetorical short-hand for the gospel (through epithet [εὐαγγέλιον,
λόγος, κήρυγμα, διακονία], synecdoche [e. g., ὁ λόγος τοῦ σταυροῦ], and meta-
phor [planting, building]),37 Mark adopts the form of the parable in order to
“miniaturize” the episodic narrative, the εὐαγγέλιον. So Mark shares this feature
of Pauline theological poetics – the move to short-hand formulations; scholars
are so used to this from Paul that they may not recognize its idiosyncracy. This is
most evident in the parable of the vineyard in Mark 12:1–12, which encapsulates
the two main episodes (death, exaltation) and sets them within the accordion-
like expansion of the Pauline εὐαγγέλιον that encompasses Mark’s own typolog-
ical alignment of Jesus with the prophets (but cf. 1 Thess 2:15), and especially
John the Baptist as the prophet and forerunner par excellence before the fate of
Jesus, and stretches it forward into a future beyond the death and resurrection,
and into events that took place after Paul’s own death. Most important here for
Mark is the destruction of the temple in Jerusalem, which he tells with a logic not
all that different from Paul’s own from decades before (1 Thess 2:14–16), that is
already connecting dots about Jews/Judeans as persecutors.38
In addition to knowledge that Paul did not have, in particular about both the
destruction of the temple in 70 CE and the success of the Pauline Gentile mission
in the decade or so after his death, Mark incorporates other traditions about
Jesus that Paul either did not know, or (more likely) did not tell in his letters, but
may have had in his oral εὐαγγέλιον, most particularly miracle stories. In many
ways for Mark the διδαχή of Jesus unites word and deed, as in the inaugural
miracle at Capernaum (especially 1:21–28), and it does so because of the power
of the πνεῦμα that Christ had received at the baptism (1:9–11). The reader of
Mark therefore is meant to see in the scripted epiphanies of Christ on the pages
of the gospel the kerygma and the power of the spirit that infuses Christ, suffuses
the entire narrative, and helps the reader to join in its epiphanic potential from
37 Full argument in Mitchell, “Rhetorical Shorthand.”

38 Of course, it is the eerie alignment of 1 Thess 2:14–16 with the events of 70 CE that has
led scholars to think it might be a later interpolation (see the influential article of B. A. Pearson,
“1 Thessalonians 2:13–16: A Deutero-Pauline Interpolation,” HTR 64 [1971]: 79–94), though
more would excerpt 2:14–16 and retain 2:13, I believe. I regard the passage as likely authentic,
and perhaps an influential piece of the development of traditions of οἱ Ἰουδαῖοι as responsible
for the death of Christ (cf. Matt 23:34–39).
her or his own both epistemologically, ecclesiologically, and, from Mark’s point
of view, pneumatologically superior point of view. The epiphanic logic of Mark’s
gospel reflects that of Paul’s astounding claims, that the εὐαγγέλιον, as both a
narrative and a δύναμις, can be accessed by those who never knew Christ in the
flesh, never traveled to Galilee or Jerusalem, through the replication mechanisms
of textual mediation, baptism, ethical imitation, and ecclesial solidarity. These
things are so familiar to us from Paul’s letters that we forget how controversial,
and how deeply rooted in Paul’s own peculiar authority claims, they are. And
Mark not only shares them, but they are at the heart of the theological poetics of
this first extended Christian narrative text.
To conclude we return to Dürer and his Mark and Paul (Figure 4). Mark,
a bit of a ruffian, or at least a rough character, looks to Paul as his Muse. Paul
dominates the frame, both textually and cranially (!), and yet Mark’s media revo-
lution was to transform the mediatorial hermeneutics of the Pauline εὐαγγέλιον
from their locus in Paul himself, that man of multi-media epiphanic activity in
εὐαγγέλιον-transfer,39 into a broadly accessible narrative to be encountered both
orally and in written form. Mark was the one (whoever this person really was,
he was certainly an author40 and not a collector of notes) who set out to cast the
oral and visual Pauline εὐαγγέλιον into a long-hand episodic prose narrative
that captures the theological poetics and religious dynamics that were dis-
tinctly Pauline. And these mediatorial hermeneutics were to prove surprisingly
enduring, not just during the life of Paul, but they offered trans-local and trans-
generational access to the εὐαγγέλιον via text, not tomb.41 Mark thereby set in
motion written Christian narrative as a critical part of the new cult’s religious
phenomenology and success, even as his own poetics bears unmistakable marks
of that oral proclaimer and insistent epistolary communicator, Paul.
39 See the claim to the four-fold media of communication of Paul’s gospel in 1 Thess 1:5: ὅτι
τὸ εὐαγγέλιον ἡμῶν οὐκ ἐγενήθη εἰς ὑμᾶς ἐν λόγῳ μόνον ἀλλὰ καὶ ἐν δυνάμει καὶ ἐν πνεύματι
ἁγίῳ καὶ [ἐν] πληροφορίᾳ πολλῇ.
40 Note that my term for Mark, ἀρχηγέτης, also means “first cause, author” (LSJ, s. v. 3).
41 As stated in Mitchell, Paul and the Emergence of Christian Textuality, xiv–xv, “The
‘epiphanic logic’ of Pauline mediated presence of Jesus Christ crucified was carried on by the
evangelist Mark, who was influenced by Paul not only in his emphasis on the cross, but in his
theological poetics about the episodic narrative of the crucified and raised Messiah as enshrined
in his work, ‘a literary icon of Jesus Christ crucified,’ that does what Paul did in re-presenting
the death of Christ, as present in text, not tomb” (the text/tomb contrast is also found in my
earlier essays, such as “Emergence of the Written Record,” 18; “Epiphanic Evolutions,” 255:
“The epiphanic media of the early Christian cult were to be neither τόπος nor tomb, but apos-
tolic envoys and then texts, which they claimed were the site where one could palpably en-
counter the divine presence.”). Of course, later Christian culture was to combine tomb cult for
Jesus (in Jerusalem) with textual reference, but that was still centuries ahead.
Das Markusevangelium
als Tragikomödie lesen
Stefan Alkier
A. Die Fragestellung
„Und nachdem sie herausgekommen waren, flohen sie weg vom Grab, es hatte
sie nämlich Zittern und Entsetzen dauerhaft ergriffen und niemandem, nichts
sagten sie – sie fürchteten sich inständig, nämlich“ (Mk 16,8, Übers. Alkier). Das
Markusevangelium verspricht Leserinnen und Lesern mit seinem ersten Satz
ein εὐαγγέλιον, eine gute Nachricht, eine Frohbotschaft zu präsentieren (vgl.
Mk 1,1). Warum aber endet es nicht euphorisch mit der Darstellung von Freude
angesichts der guten Nachricht von der Auferweckung Jesu, die der Engel am Grab
mitteilt (vgl. 16,6), sondern mit der Dissonanz des im Schweigen verharrenden
Sich-Fürchtens der ersten Empfängerinnen der Auferweckungsbotschaft (16,8)?1
Diese Frage kann nur eine Interpretation des Markusevangeliums beantwor-
ten, die das gegebene Zeichengeflecht als Textkomposition zusammengefügter
Handlungen2 wahrnimmt und daraufhin die „Bedeutungs- und Funktions-
zusammenhänge auf synchroner Ebene“3 analysiert und nach deren Leserlen-
kung fragt. Ich untersuche demgemäß die narrativen und rhetorischen Strategien
des Evangeliums mit Blick auf die pragmatische Fragestellung, wie Markus seine
Erzählung des Evangeliums von Jesus Christus gestaltet, um den Rezipienten der
1 Spätestens seit Henning Paulsens Untersuchung des Markusschlusses wird man sich
der Schwierigkeit eines mit 16,8 endenden Markusevangeliums stellen müssen; H. Paulsen,
„Mk XVI 1–8,“ NovT 22 (1980): 138–75, wieder abgedr. in ders., Zur Literatur und Geschichte
des frühen Christentums: Gesammelte Aufsätze, WUNT 99 (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 1997),
75–112.
2 Vgl. Aristoteles, Poet. 6, 1450a4–5: λέγω γὰρ μῦθον τοῦτον τὴν σύνθεσιν τῶν πραγμάτων.
3 C. Breytenbach, Nachfolge und Zukunftserwartung nach Markus: Eine methodenkritische
Studie, ATANT 71 (Zürich: Theologischer Verlag, 1984), 73: „[…] die Scheidung von Tradition
und Redaktion, die Feststellung des Umfangs der vormarkinischen Tradition und der marki-
nischen Redaktion werden immer hypothetisch bleiben, so daß man keine feste Basis für die
Redaktionskritik gewinnen kann, die zu gesicherten Ergebnissen führen könnte. Darum muß
man einen anderen Ausgangspunkt suchen. Der Primat der Synchronie vor der Diachronie ist
nicht nur ein bewährtes Grundaxiom der modernen Linguistik, er kann uns auch helfen, aus
diesem Dilemma der Markusforschung herauszukommen, und zwar indem man der Erhellung
der Bedeutungs- und Funktionszusammenhänge auf synchroner Ebene grundsätzliche Priori-
tät vor diachronen Überlegungen einräumt. Der feste Punkt in der Exegese ist der vorliegende
Text, den wir haben; von ihm muß man ausgehen, auf ihn hin alles prüfen.“
220 Stefan Alkier
Auferweckungsbotschaft des himmlischen Boten in 16,6 eine andere Reaktion

auf dessen gute Nachricht zu ermöglichen als die der Frauen am Grab.
B. Die generative Poetik4 des Aristoteles

als heuristisches Modell
Ich gehe aus von dem mittlerweile breiten Konsens der internationalen
Forschung, dass das Markusevangelium als Erzählung5 zu lesen ist. Strittig hin-
gegen bleibt die Spezifikation der Erzählweise bzw. der Textsortenbestimmung.
Die von manchen vertretene Auffassung, es handele sich um eine Biographie6
bzw. um Geschichtsschreibung7, überzeugt nicht nur deshalb nicht, weil das
biographische Interesse an Jesu Herkunft, seine Familie, seine Kindheit und
Ausbildung vom Markusevangelium kaum befriedigt wird. Vielmehr gibt es in
der antiken Literatur keine Biographie, die von der Auferweckung desjenigen
handelt, dessen Leben sie beschreibt.
Unter Bezugnahme auf die Poetik des Aristoteles hat dagegen Cilliers Breyten-
bach „Das Markusevangelium als episodische Erzählung“8 definiert. Er erkennt
zwar in der Erzählung des Markusevangeliums durchaus eine „Superstruktur“.9
Allerdings sei die Anordnung einiger Wundergeschichten und Streitgespräche
austauschbar,10 folge also keiner syntagmatischen Logik.
4 Ich muss gestehen, dass die Poetik des Aristoteles seit meinem Studium zu den antiken
Schriften zählt, die mich am meisten faszinieren. Das mag auch damit zusammenhängen, dass
mein Lehrer Erhardt Güttgemanns in Anlehnung an Aristoteles eine generative Poetik vorgelegt
hat, die mich in vielerlei Hinsicht bis heute überzeugt. Nicht ohne Grund widmete die Zeit-
schrift Semeia im Jahr 1976 der generativen Poetik von Güttgemanns ein ganzes Heft: Erhardt
Güttgemanns’ Generative Poetics, Semeia 6 (1976), hg. von N. R. Petersen und W. G. Doty.
5 Vgl. Breytenbach, Nachfolge, 75–84, der nach Erhardt Güttgemanns nachhaltig für die
Einbeziehung texttheoretisch fundierter narratologischer Analyse- und Interpretationsver-
fahren in der Markusforschung eingetreten ist, hat die älteren Gattungsbestimmungen, Mk sei
eine Predigt bzw. eine Geschichtserzählung, mit dem schlagenden Argument abgewiesen, dass
diese Gattungsbestimmung nicht am Text des Markusevangeliums ausgewiesen werden kann,
und dagegen seinen Vorschlag eingebracht, es als episodische Erzählung zu bestimmen. Vgl.
auch F. Hahn (Hg.), Der Erzähler des Evangeliums: Methodische Neuansätze in der Markus-
forschung, SBS 118, 119 (Stuttgart: Katholisches Bibelwerk, 1985); D. M. Rhoads, J. Dewey, und
D. Michie, Mark as Story: An Introduction to the Narrative of a Gospel, 2. Aufl. (Minneapolis:
Fortress, 1999); B. M. F. van Iersel, Markus: Kommentar (Düsseldorf: Patmos, 1993).
6 Vgl. D. Frickenschmidt, Evangelium als Biographie: Die vier Evangelien im Rahmen anti-
ker Erzählkunst, TANZ 22 (Tübingen: Francke, 1997); R. A. Burridge, What Are the Gospels?
A Comparison with Graeco-Roman Biography, 3. Aufl. (Waco, TX: Baylor University Press,
2018). Vgl. dazu den Beitrag von Cilliers Breytenbach im vorliegenden Band.
7 Vgl. E.‑M. Becker, Das Markus-Evangelium im Rahmen antiker Historiographie, WUNT
194 (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2006). Vgl. dazu meine Rezension in Historische Zeitschrift 285
(2007): 700–2.
8 Breytenbach, Nachfolge, 82–84.
9 Breytenbach, Nachfolge, 82.
10 Breytenbach, Nachfolge, 82: „Die Reihenfolge von einigen Wundergeschichten oder
Das Markusevangelium als Tragikomödie lesen 221
Die Konstatierung einer Superstruktur für eine zusammenhängende Er-

zählung widerspricht jedoch dem aristotelischen Verständnis einer episodischen
Zusammenstellung der erzählten Handlungen. Episodische Reihenfolgen haben
Aristoteles zufolge kein Zusammenhang stiftendes Erzählgerüst. Sie sind nicht
Ergebnis dichterischer Arbeit, sondern Zufallsprodukte schlechter Dichter, die
ihrer eigentlichen Aufgabe, die einzelnen Handlungen zu einem stimmigen
Ganzen zu verknüpfen, nicht gerecht geworden sind. Aristoteles schreibt:
Demnach muss, wie in den anderen nachahmenden Künsten die Einheit der Nach-
ahmung auf der Einheit des Gegenstandes beruht, auch die Fabel, da sie Nachahmung
von Handlung ist, die Nachahmung einer einzigen, und zwar einer ganzen Handlung sein.
Ferner müssen die Teile der Geschehnisse so zusammengefügt sein, daß sich das Ganze
verändert und durcheinander gerät, wenn irgendein Teil umgestellt oder weggenommen
wird. Denn was ohne sichtbare Folgen vorhanden sein oder fehlen kann, ist gar nicht ein
Teil des Ganzen.11
Aus diesem Grund wertet Aristoteles episodische Handlungszusammenstellun-
gen ab:
Unter den einfachen Fabeln und Handlungen sind die episodischen die schlechtesten. Ich
bezeichne die Fabel als episodisch, in der die Episoden weder nach der Wahrscheinlich-
keit noch nach der Notwendigkeit aufeinander folgen. Solche Handlungen werden von
den schlechten Dichtern aus eigenem Unvermögen gedichtet, von den guten aber durch
Anforderungen der Schauspieler. Denn wenn sie Deklamationen dichten und die Fabel
über ihre Wirkungsmöglichkeiten hinaus in die Länge ziehen, dann sind sie oft gezwun-
gen, den Zusammenhang zu zerreißen.12
Wer aber das Markusevangelium als Erzählung liest, wird durchaus einen Er-
zählzusammenhang wahrnehmen, der einen Anfang der Handlungen mit dem
Auftreten des taufenden Johannes setzt, mit der Einführung, Geistbegabung
und Prüfung des Protagonisten Jesus fortsetzt und dann durch die Erzählung
dessen Kreuzestod und dann auch seine Auferweckung als plausible Folgen der
erzählten Handlungen inszeniert.
Mit diesem erlesbaren Zusammenhang bildet das Markusevangelium ein
sinnvolles Ganzes, also einen Text im Sinne der Textologie János Petöfis. Ein
bloßes Nebeneinander von Zeichen ergibt noch keinen Text. Eine Ansammlung
von Zeichen erzeugt erst den Eindruck eines zusammenhängenden Ganzen,
wenn diese Zeichen syntagmatisch, semantisch und pragmatisch Sinn generie-
rend organisiert wurden bzw. organisiert werden können.
Für uns ist Textualität keine inhärente Eigenschaft verbaler Objekte. Ein Produzent oder
ein Rezipient betrachtet ein verbales Objekt als Text, wenn er glaubt, dass dieses verbale
Streitgesprächen könnte ohne eine Änderung im Erzählablauf vertauscht werden, und doch hat
im Gesamtzusammenhang jede Episode ihren Platz.“
11 Aristoteles, Poet. 8, 1451a30–35, übers. von M. Fuhrmann, Aristoteles: Poetik, Griechisch/
Deutsch, Reclam Universal-Bibliothek 7828 (Stuttgart: Reclam, 1982), 29.
12 Aristoteles, Poet. 9, 1451b33–1452a1, übers. von Fuhrmann, Aristoteles: Poetik, 33.
222 Stefan Alkier
Objekt ein zusammenhängendes und vollständiges Ganzes ist, das einer tatsächlichen
oder angenommenen kommunikativen Intention in einer tatsächlichen oder angenom-
menen Kommunikationssituation entspricht. Ein Text ist – gemäß der semiotischen
Terminologie – ein komplexes verbales Zeichen (oder ein verbaler Zeichenkomplex), das/
der einer gegebenen Erwartung der Textualität entspricht.13
Wer das Markusevangelium als Erzählung versteht, muss zeigen, wie die er-
zählten Handlungen zusammenhängen. Je nachdem, ob man die Handlungen
als mehr oder weniger zusammenhängend betrachtet, erhält man verschiedene
Textsorten bzw. Gattungszuweisungen, die wiederum Prädispositionen für die
Verknüpfungen der Handlungen als Rezeptionserwartungen ins Spiel bringen.
Wer das Markusevangelium als episodische Erzählung definiert, wird den Zu-
sammenhang der Episoden als eher lose einschätzen und primär auf semantische
Zusammenhänge wie Gottesherrschaft, Jüngerunverständnis, Nachfolge oder
Zukunftserwartung setzen. Wer aber die verschiedenen erzählten Handlungen
als Bausteine einer einzigen zusammenhängenden Handlung wahrnimmt, fragt
Schritt für Schritt nach dem Beitrag der jeweiligen Handlung zum Fortschritt
der Erzählung als ganzer und wird diese dann insgesamt als eine dramatische
Erzählung lesen und interpretieren.
Interessant ist nun, dass beide Vorschläge sich auf die Poetik des Aristoteles
beziehen. Breytenbach hat seinen Entwurf, das Markusevangeliums als episo-
dische Erzählung zu begreifen, auch als Alternative zu einer anderen Gattungs-
bestimmung entworfen, die sich ebenfalls auf Aristoteles bezieht:
Die von D. L. Barr übernommene These, daß das Mk.‑Ev. eine dramatische Erzählung
sei mit Anfang (Mk 1,1–15), Mitte (Mk 1,16–14,42) und Schluß (Mk 14,43–16,8), wobei
man bis zur Mitte (Mk 8,27) eine steigende positive Tendenz und von Mk 8,27 ff. ab eine
negative Tendenz hat, scheitert an zweierlei. Jesus ist bis Mk 8,27 nicht nur Sieger, er ist
auch eindeutig der Unverstandene […]. Die Dreiteilung allein schafft noch kein Drama
im aristotelischen Sinn. Gegen Barr ist festzuhalten, daß Aristoteles das Mk.‑Ev. vielmehr
zur Epik rechnen würde.14
13 J. S. Petöfi, „Explikative Interpretation: Explikatives Wissen,“ in Von der verbalen Kon-
stitution zur symbolischen Bedeutung – From Verbal Constitution to Symbolic Meaning, hg. von
ders. and T. Olivi, Papiere zur Textlinguistik 62 (Hamburg: H. Buske, 1988), 184–95, 184. Vgl.
zu Petöfis Textologie K. Dronsch, Bedeutung als Grundbegriff neutestamentlicher Wissenschaft:
Texttheoretische und semiotische Entwürfe zu Kritik der Semantik dargelegt anhand einer Ana-
lyse zu ἀκούειν in Mk 4, NET 15 (Tübingen: Francke, 2006), insbes. 96–138.
14 Breytenbach, Nachfolge, 62, Anm. 467. Breytenbach argumentiert hier gegen W. Vorster,
„Die evangelie volgens Markus: Inleiding en teologie,“ in Handleiding by die Nuwe Testament,
Bd. 4: Die sinoptiese Evangelies en Handelinge, inleiding in teologie, hg. von A. B. du Toit und
H. J. B. Combrink (Pretoria: N. G. Kerkboekhandel, 1980), 109–55. Vorster hatte dort mit
Verweis auf D. L. Barr, „Toward a Definition of the Gospel Genre: A Generic Analysis and
Comparison of the Synoptic Gospels and the Socratic Dialogues by Means of Aristotle’s Theory
of Tragedy“ (PhD diss., Florida State University, 1974), das Markusevangelium als dramatische
Erzählung bestimmt.
Barr, Vorster und Breytenbach vereint ihre Wertschätzung der aristotelischen

Poetik, an der sie ihre Gattungsbestimmungen in unterschiedlicher Art und
Weise ausrichten. Im Kern geht es um die Frage, wie man das Markusevangelium
lesen kann. Lässt sich ein dramatischer Handlungsaufbau wahrnehmen oder ist
die Reihenfolge der Episoden weitgehend austauschbar?
Es gilt aber bei der Bezugnahme auf Aristoteles15 – wie sie u. a. auch schon von
Adolf Jülicher16 und Dan Otto Via17 praktiziert wurde – Folgendes zu beachten:
Die generative Poetik18 des Aristoteles argumentiert überwiegend normativ und
weniger deskriptiv. Sie ist eher ein Leitfaden für die Herstellung einer gelungenen
Tragödie als ein Analyseinstrument aller vorfindlichen dramatischen Dichtung.
Mein Bezug auf sie will daher keine statische Gattungsbestimmung des Markus-
evangeliums in die Diskussion einbringen. Es macht m. E. wenig Sinn, das
Markusevangelium in Akte einzuteilen und es als ein Drama zu gliedern. Ich
behaupte also nicht: Das Markusevangelium ist eine Tragikomödie und wurde
gar als solche unter Kenntnis der aristotelischen Poetik von Markus konzipiert.
Vielmehr nutze ich sie mit Bezug auf die Textdefinition Petöfis als heuristisches
Interpretationsmodell, das mir – und hoffentlich auch anderen – beim Zusam-
menhang herstellenden Lesen des Markusevangeliums wirksame Hilfe leistet.
Ich schlage damit zugleich vor, sich von allen statischen biologistischen und
ontologischen Gattungsideen gänzlich zu verabschieden und Textsortenbestim-
mungen grundsätzlich als heuristische Modelle zu konzipieren, die sich in der
Interpretation als nützlich erweisen müssen, wenn sie Geltung beanspruchen
wollen. Meine These lautet also: Es ergibt am Textbestand des Markusevangeli-
ums überprüfbaren guten Sinn, dieses Evangelium als ein zusammenhängendes
Ganzes zu lesen und es als Tragikomödie zu interpretieren.
15 Soweit ich sehe, ist die forschungsgeschichtliche Frage nach dem Bezug der Exegese auf
Aristoteles ein Desiderat der Forschung.
16 Vgl. dazu S. Alkier, „Die ‚Gleichnisreden Jesu‘ als ‚Meisterwerke volkstümlicher Beredt-
samkeit‘: Beobachtungen zur Aristotelesrezeption Adolf Jülichers,“ in Die Gleichnisreden Jesu
(1899–1999): Beiträge zum Dialog mit Adolf Jülicher, hg. von U. Mell, BZNW 103 (Berlin: De
Gruyter, 1999), 39–74.
17 D. O. Via, Die Gleichnisse Jesu: Ihre literarische und existentiale Dimension, BET 57
(München: Kaiser, 1970), insbes. 100–2. Dieses Buch hat mich auf die Idee gebracht, das
Markusevangelium als Tragikomödie zu interpretieren. Via, ebd. 102, schreibt: „Es ist jedoch
darüber hinaus wahr, daß die ganze christliche Geschichte eine Komödie ist, aber eine Komö-
die, in der die Tragödie eingeschlossen und überkommen ist, wie wir beim ‚Verlorenen Sohn‘
sehen werden.“
18 Vgl. dazu I. Düring, Aristoteles: Darstellung und Interpretation seines Denkens, 2. Aufl.,
Bibliothek der klassischen Altertumswissenschaft 2/114 (Heidelberg: Winter, 1966), 118–82.
Vgl. auch die wichtigen Essays von D. W. Lucas, Aristotle, Poetics: Introduction, Commentary
and Appendixes (Oxford: Clarendon, 1968), 258–72 („Mimesis“), 273–90 („Pity, Fear and Ka-
tharsis“) und 291–307 („Simplex and Complex Tragedy“).
224 Stefan Alkier
C. Eine kurze Skizze der Makrostruktur

des Markusevangeliums
„Das Fundament und gewissermaßen die Seele der Tragödie ist also der Mythos. An
zweiter Stelle stehen die Charaktere.“19
Aristoteles zufolge bestimmt also die „Zusammensetzung der Geschehnisse“, die

er als μῦθος und wir heute als „plot“ bezeichnen, die Gestaltung der Charaktere
und der Wirkungen des Textes und nicht umgekehrt. Die Figurenzeichnung
prägt also nicht die Handlung, sondern die Handlung mit ihren gewünschten
pragmatischen Effekten die Figurenzeichnung. Demnach bestimmt nicht
die Zeichnung Jesu Christi, seiner Nachfolger und seiner Kontrahenten die
Erzählung des Mk, sondern die Erzählung prägt die Charaktere ihrer Hand-
lungsträger. Nicht das „Jüngerunverständnis“ generiert die Erzählung vom ein-
samen Helden am Kreuz, sondern die Erzählung des Mk ist so gestaltet, dass die
Charaktere der Schüler und Nachfolger Jesu so dargestellt werden müssen, dass
niemanden von ihnen die wahre Identität Jesu Christi zu erkennen vermag.
Meine Arbeitshypothese bzgl. der Makrostruktur des Markusevangeliums
lautet daher, dass Mk 1,1–15,46 als Tragödie und 15,47–16,8 als Komödie
gelesen werden können. Der tragische20 Teil des Mk erzählt die euphorische An-
kunft des Sohnes Gottes und seine euphorische Aufnahme, die aber von Beginn
konterkariert wird durch dysphorische Handlungsstränge, die schließlich zum
einsamen Tod des Helden am Kreuz führen. Euphorische Erzählelemente tragen
zum Gelingen der Handlungsabsicht des Protagonisten bei, dysphorische stören
sie bzw. führen zum Scheitern. Der komische Teil erzählt den lächerlichen Gang
dreier Frauen zum Grab des tragischen Helden, die in schändlicher Weise die
Erkenntnisunfähigkeit der Schüler Jesu auf die Spitze treiben, indem sie in ihrer
Furcht verharren und so ihren himmlischen Verkündigungsauftrag verweigern.
Was beide Erzählteile gemeinsam haben, ist die Verkennung der Identität des
Helden durch seine engsten Vertrauten, so dass die Leser und Leserinnen an
ihrer Stelle die wahre Identität Jesu Christi erkennen sollen und daraus die Kon-
sequenz aus der guten Nachricht von der Auferweckung des gekreuzigten Jesus
Christus ziehen, diese weiterzugeben. Ruft der Tod Jesu „Jammern und Schau-
dern“21 bei den Lesenden hervor und reinigt sie damit, so drängt das unredliche
19 Aristoteles, Poet. 6, 1450a38–39, übers. von Fuhrmann, Aristoteles: Poetik, 23.
20 Aristoteles (Poet. 6, 1449b24–1450a7, übers. von Fuhrmann, Aristoteles: Poetik, 19.21)
definiert: „Die Tragödie ist Nachahmung einer guten und in sich geschlossenen Handlung von
bestimmter Größe […], Nachahmung von Handelnden […], die Jammern und Schaudern her-
vorruft und hierdurch eine Reinigung von derartigen Erregungszuständen bewirkt. […] Die
Nachahmung von Handlung ist der Mythos. Ich verstehe hier unter Mythos die Zusammen-
setzung der Geschehnisse, unter Charakteren das, im Hinblick worauf wir den Handelnden
eine bestimmte Beschaffenheit zuschreiben, unter Erkenntnisfähigkeit das, womit sie in ihren
Reden etwas darlegen oder auch ein Urteil ablegen.“
21 Aristoteles, Poet. 6, 1449b27, übers. von Fuhrmann, Aristoteles: Poetik, 19.
Verhalten der Frauen am Grab die durch die Tragödie gereinigten Rezipienten in
die Rolle der Verkündiger. Die dysphorische Handlung der Komödie führt zur
euphorischen Handlung der Lesenden in ihrem jeweiligen Leben und schreibt
sie damit nach Jesaja und der Erzählung des Mk als drittes Glied in das Evan-
gelium ein. Die das Mk zustimmend Lesenden sind es, die vielfache Frucht
bringen (vgl. Mk 4,20).
D. Der Anfang des Evangeliums
Die Wortkette von ἀρχή bis προφήτῃ zu Beginn des Markusevangeliums bildet
einen zusammenhängenden Satz, der folgendermaßen zu übersetzen ist: „An-
fang des Evangeliums Jesu Christi wie er aufgeschrieben ist bei Jesaja, dem
Propheten“.22 Damit instruiert das Markusevangelium seine Leserinnen und
Leser, die Jesus-Christus-Geschichte, die das Markusevangelium erzählt, als
Fortsetzung der Heiligen Schriften Israels zu lesen. Der mit καθώς eingeleitete
Nebensatz bezieht sich auf ἀρχή und erläutert damit, wo der Anfang des vom
Markusevangelium erzählten Evangeliums zu finden ist. Das Wort ἀρχή bezeich-
net also nicht den Anfang des Markustextes, sondern den Anfang des von ihm
erzählten Evangeliums, den Markus nicht in seiner eigenen Schrift, sondern im
Buch des Propheten Jesaja gegeben sieht. Das Markusevangelium inszeniert sich
als schriftliche Fortsetzung der aufgeschriebenen Prophetie Jesajas (γέγραπται).
Der erste Satz des Markusevangeliums gibt das konventionalisierte Wissen, die
Enzyklopädie,23 an, in deren Plausibilitätsannahmen die vom Markusevan-
gelium erzählte Geschichte Sinn generieren kann.
Das Wort „Evangelium“ weckt die Erwartungshaltung einer euphorischen
Erzählung, also einer Geschichte mit gutem Ausgang. Als Protagonist dieser
Geschichte wird Jesus Christus eingeführt. Sein Eigenname Jesus verortet ihn
in die Plausibilitätsstrukturen menschlicher Zusammenhänge. Der Christustitel
begründet seine herausgehobene Stellung als Protagonist der Erzählung, denn
er erfüllt damit die Erwartung des Messias, die die Heiligen Schriften Israels und
insbesondere die prophetischen Schriften hervorgebracht haben. Die Bezeich-
nung „Sohn Gottes“ in 1,1 hingegen ist wohl eine spätere Ergänzung, die von
22 Die Interpunktion des Nestle-Aland führt hier in die Irre. Mit καθώς beginnt kein
Hauptsatz. Vers 1 ist also nicht als Überschrift zu lesen.
23 Der hier verwendete Enzyklopädiebegriff entstammt der Semiotik Umberto Ecos. Vgl.
dazu U. Eco, Lector in fabula: Die Mitarbeit der Interpretation in erzählenden Texten, übers.
von H.‑G. Held (München: Deutscher Taschenbuch Verlag, 1987). Vgl. auch S. Alkier, Wunder
und Wirklichkeit in den Briefen des Apostels Paulus: Ein Beitrag zu einem Wunderverständnis
jenseits von Entmythologisierung und Rehistorisierung, WUNT 134 (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck,
2001), 72–74; ders., „Neutestamentliche Wissenschaft: Ein semiotisches Konzept,“ in Kontexte
der Schrift, Bd. 2: Kultur, Politik, Religion, Sprache, hg. von C. Strecker (Stuttgart: Kohlhammer,
2005), 343–60, 350–52.
226 Stefan Alkier
der entscheidenden Bedeutung dieses Hoheitstitels für das Markusevangelium

motiviert wurde.24
Vers 2 führt den Boten des Messias ein, der in Vers 4 als Johannes der Täufer
identifiziert wird und durch die Sprache seiner Kleidung in 1,6 wiederum an
Elia erinnert (vgl. 2Kön 1,8). Der Bote soll dem angesprochenen Messias den
Weg bereiten und er vollzieht diesen Auftrag, indem er die Adressaten des Mes-
sias dazu auffordert, dem Kyrios den Weg zu bereiten.
Die Anrede in Vers 3 zielt in pragmatischer Hinsicht auf die Leserinnen und
Leser des Markusevangeliums. Sie werden von der Prophetenstimme, die die Auf-
forderung Gottes weitergibt, angehalten, die Botschaft des Markusevangeliums
so zu hören, dass damit der Kyrios von ihnen angemessen aufgenommen wird.
Dabei lässt sich der Titel κύριος der in der LXX als Gottesbezeichnung gewählt
wird, syntaktisch sowohl auf das sprechende Ich, als auch auf das angeredete
Du beziehen, also sowohl auf Gott, als auch auf seinen Messias. Aufgrund der
intertextuellen Verschränkung liegt es näher, den Kyriostitel zunächst auf Gott
zu beziehen, aber in dem Kommen seines Messias zugleich Gott selbst kommen
zu sehen.
Die Verse 1–3 eröffnen nicht nur das Diskursuniversum25 des Markusevan-
geliums, sondern geben schon am Beginn des Evangeliums die entscheidende
Rezeptionsanweisung, das Markusevangelium selbst als prophetische Boten-
stimme des Kyrios zu hören und sich von ihm bilden zu lassen. Die Verse 1–3 zu
Beginn des Markusevangeliums geben also eine intertextuelle26 Einführung in
das Evangelium mit pragmatischer Funktion.
E. Die Einführung und Prüfung des Protagonisten
In 1,9 tritt der Protagonist der Erzählung auf. Er wird als Jesus von Nazareth aus
Galiläa identifiziert (1,9a). Nachdem er von Johannes mit Wasser getauft wurde
(1,9b), empfängt er den Geist (1,10), und die Himmelsstimme spricht ihn als
geliebten Sohn Gottes an (1,11). Der Geist spielt eine aktive Rolle und macht
24 Erst unter dem Kreuz kommt ein Mensch im Markusevangelium auf die angemessene
Bezeichnung des Protagonisten Jesus als Sohn Gottes (15,39). Dieser Mensch ist bezeichnen-
derweise keiner von Jesu Nachfolgerinnen und Nachfolgern, sondern ein römischer Haupt-
mann. Der Hauptmann erkennt aber nicht, dass Jesus der Sohn Gottes ist, sondern lediglich,
dass er es war.
25 Den Begriff des Diskursuniversums habe ich von C. S. Peirce übernommen und für die
Belange der Exegese bearbeitet. Vgl. dazu Alkier, Wunder und Wirklichkeit, 74–78.
26 Die Zitate in Vers 2b und 3 stammen traditionsgeschichtlich gesehen freilich nur teilwei-
se aus Jesaja 40,3. Hinzuzuziehen sind Ex 23,20 und Ml 3,1. Für die intratextuelle Interpretation
ist es daher von besonderer Bedeutung, dass nur der Name Jesaja im Text fällt und damit das
Jesajabuch besonders herausgestellt wird. Vgl. auch J. Marcus, Mark: A New Translation with
Introduction and Commentary, 2 vols., AYB 27, 27A (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press,
2000, 2009), 1:142–43.
Jesus zum Objekt. Er wirft ihn in die Wüste (1,12). Dort besteht er die Probe
der Versuchung durch Satan, den Ankläger Gottes (1,13). Der Protagonist Jesus
von Nazareth aus Galiläa ist nun mit der Kraft ausgestattet, die seine über das
Menschen Mögliche hinausgehenden Taten plausibel erscheinen lässt. Durch
die bestandene Prüfung werden seine Worte und Taten vorab als kongruent mit
dem Willen Gottes gekennzeichnet. Die Leserinnen und Leser wissen durch die
ersten 13 Verse des Markusevangeliums, wer Jesus von Nazareth ist: der mit dem
Geist ausgestattete geliebte Sohn Gottes und als solcher der erwartete Messias.
Sie wissen aber noch nicht, wozu der Geist ihn befähigt hat und auf welche
Widerstände er treffen wird.
F. Die Eröffnung der Erzählspannung
Vers 14 führt das erste dysphorische Element ein und eröffnet damit den an-
tagonistischen Erzählstrang: Jesus kommt nach Galiläa, nachdem Johannes ge-
fangen gesetzt worden war. Die Lesenden erfahren an dieser Stelle noch nichts
über die Umstände der Gefangennahme des Boten. Aber durch die beiden
zuwiderlaufenden Erzählstränge ist damit der Spannungsbogen aufgebaut: die
euphorische Erzählung der Ankunft und des Wirkens des Protagonisten auf der
einen und die dysphorische Erzählung der Bedrohung dieses Wirkens durch di-
verse Gegenspieler auf der anderen Seite.
Wie bereits Willi Marxsen27 gezeigt hat, steht am Anfang und im Zentrum
der öffentlichen Wirksamkeit Jesu die Verkündigung des Reiches Gottes als
Ansage der kosmologisch-eschatologischen Zeitenwende: „Nachdem Johannes
gefangengesetzt worden war, kam Jesus nach Galiläa. Er verkündete das Evan-
gelium, die Frohbotschaft Gottes und sagte: Erfüllt ist die Zeit und nahe ge-
kommen ist das Reich Gottes. Denkt um und vertraut auf die Frohbotschaft!“
(1,14–15, Übers. Alkier). Aus dieser Zeitansage folgt der Appell zum Umdenken
und zum Vertrauen auf diese gute Nachricht, das Evangelium. Die Verkündi-
gung des Reiches Gottes benennt der Protagonist als Zweck seines Kommens
(vgl. 1,38c).
Bis einschließlich Kapitel 3 wird der euphorische Erzählstrang des Erfolgs
des Wirkens Jesu durch die Berufung der Schüler (vgl. 1,16–20), durch die Dar-
stellung seiner Macht in Wort und Tat und durch die Feststellung des Anwach-
sens seiner Nachfolgerinnen und Nachfolger (vgl. 2,2.15; 3,7–8) vorangetrieben.
Zugleich wird der dysphorische Erzählstrang durch die Konflikterzählungen
bzgl. des Fastens (vgl. 2,18–22) und des Ährenraufens am Sabbat (2,23–28) in-
szeniert und vor allem durch den Blasphemie-Vorwurf einiger Schriftgelehrter
27 W. Marxsen, Der Evangelist Markus: Studien zur Redaktionsgeschichte des Evangeliums,

FRLANT n. F. 49 (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck und Ruprecht, 1956).
228 Stefan Alkier
in 2,7 und die Tötungsabsicht in 3,6 seitens der Pharisäer und der Herodesleute
konkretisiert.
Der Konflikt wird aber nicht nur durch die Figurenzeichnung der Gegner
Jesu, sondern auch durch die des Protagonisten selbst geschürt. Der Jesus des
Markusevangeliums ist ein zorniger (vgl. 1,43; 3,5), kampfbereiter Messias, der
seine Machtansprüche provozierend benennt. Er nimmt offen göttliche Kom-
petenz in Anspruch, wenn er Verfehlungen vergibt (vgl. 2,5), und verwendet die
Gottesbezeichnung κύριος für sich selbst: „Kyrios ist der Sohn des Menschen
auch über den Sabbat“ (2,28). Auch das Syntagma „Sohn des Menschen“ unter-
streicht als heraushebende Selbstbezeichnung28 den Machtanspruch des Pro-
tagonisten. Zu den Konflikt schürenden Zügen des Protagonisten zählt auch
seine Verbundenheit mit den Sündern und Zöllnern (vgl. 2,13–17).
Die beiden Erzählstränge laufen aber nicht nebeneinander her, sondern
erzeugen gerade aufgrund ihrer narrativen Verwobenheit einen hohen Span-
nungsgrad. Das zeigt sich bereits in der Erzählung des ersten Auftretens Jesu
in Kapernaum (Mk 1,21–28). Jesus lehrt in der dortigen Synagoge und die Zu-
hörer werden von der Wirkung seiner Lehre überwältigt. Das Verb ἐκπλήσσω
(Mk 1,22), das diese Reaktion auf Jesu Lehre wiederholt im Markusevangelium
zum Ausdruck bringt,29 findet auch als Reaktion auf Jesu Wundertaten Ver-
wendung (vgl. 7,37) und der Erzähler kommentiert diese Reaktion mit folgender
Begründung: „denn er lehrte sie wie einer, der göttliche Vollmacht hat und nicht
wie die Schriftgelehrten.“ Vers 23 erzählt dann von einem Menschen in der
Synagoge, der einen unreinen Geist hat. Dieser schreit: „Was haben wir mit Dir
zu tun, Jesus von Nazareth? Bist Du gekommen, um uns zu vernichten? Ich weiß,
wer Du bist, der Heilige Gottes.“ Jesus befiehlt ihm auszufahren, was der unreine
Geist dann auch effektvoll ausführt.
Die Reaktion der Anwesenden auf diesen Machterweis wird nun mit dem-
selben Verb beschrieben, mit dem auch die spontane Furchtergriffenheit der
Frauen am Grab bezeichnet wird (ἐθαμβήθησαν 1,27; bzw. ἐξεθαμβήθησαν
16,5). Die Furchtergriffenheit in der Synagoge von Kapernaum zeigt wie die am
Grab das Unverständnis an, das als Folge der Furcht nicht erkennt, was sich
jeweils ereignet hat.
28 Die enzyklopädische Einordnung dieses Syntagmas in das konventionalisierte Wissen

des Judentums im 1. Jh. n. Chr. wird weiterhin kontrovers diskutiert. Bei aller Komplexität
sollte aber nicht aus den Augen verloren werden, dass es prophetische (Ez) und apokalyptische
Literatur intertextuell in Erinnerung ruft (Dan 7,13, 1 Hen 37–71), auch wenn die doppelte De-
terminierung – der Sohn des Menschen – erstmals im Markusevangelium belegt ist und gut zu
seiner heraushebenden Verwendung im Markusevangelium passt. Jesus bezeichnet sich in den
synoptischen Evangelien an 69 Stellen als Menschensohn. Im Johannesevangelium kommen
weitere 13 dazu. Vgl. D. R. Burkett, The Son of Man Debate: A History and Evaluation, SNTSMS
107 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1999).
29 Vgl. Mk 6,2; 10,26; 11,18.
Allerdings ist auch ein Unterschied zwischen dem ersten öffentlichen

wunderwirkenden Auftritt Jesu in Kapernaum und seiner von Gott bewirkten
wunderbaren Auferweckung am Schluss des Evangeliums zu verzeichnen. Wird
in Kapernaum zwar nicht erkannt, dass Jesus der erwartete Messias ist, mit dem
das Reich Gottes anbricht, so wird zumindest die Vollmacht seines Wirkens
benannt und damit eine Kongruenz zwischen Erzählerkommentar (1,22b) und
Jesu Publikum in der Synagoge (1,27c) hergestellt. Am Anfang des Wirkens Jesu
lässt die durch sein Handeln ausgelöste Furcht die Anwesenden zumindest noch
danach fragen, was sich ereignet hat (vgl. 1,27), während die Frauen am Grab im
erschrockenen Schweigen verharren (vgl. 16,8).
Im Anschluss an die Synagogenszene wird die Heilung der Schwiegermutter
des Petrus erzählt (1,29–31). Werner Kahl hat darauf verwiesen, dass das Fieber
in der Antike wie auch heute in medizinisch unterausgestatteten Ländern häufig
ein Vorbote des Todes ist.30 Die Krankheit der Schwiegermutter des Petrus
wird damit als lebensbedrohlich ausgewiesen. Auffälligerweise findet sich in
der Beschreibung des Heilungsvorganges durch Jesus auch erstmals die Aufer
weckungsterminologie im Markusevangelium, die auch in 16,6 verwendet wird.
Nachdem Jesus ihre Hand ergriffen hat, erweckt er sie (ἤγειρεν, 1,31). Seine Auf-
erweckung wird dann passivisch mit demselben Verb vom himmlischen Boten
im Grab verkündet: ἠγέρθη, 16,6.
Das Verb ἐγείρω findet sich nicht nur hier im Zusammenhang einer Wunder-
erzählung bzw. im Auferweckungsdiskurs wieder. Auch in 2,9; 3,3; 3,38; 5,41;
6,14.16; 9,27; 10,49; 14,28 wird es verwendet. Dieser Befund darf zwar nicht
überinterpretiert werden, denn das fragliche Verb heißt zunächst einmal „auf-
wachen, sich erheben“ und wird dann im Auferweckungsdiskurs metaphorisch
für das Ereignis der Auferweckung verwendet. Aber durch das häufige Vor-
kommen von ἐγείρω im Zusammenhang mit Wundergeschichten und Auf-
erweckungsdiskursen im Markusevangelium werden die Leser auf das alles
entscheidende ἠγέρθη in 16,6 semantisch vorbereitet.
G. Die Warnung vor dem verstockten Lesen

Das vierte Kapitel treibt den euphorischen und auch den dysphorischen Erzähl-
strang voran, indem sie weiter ineinander verwoben werden. Waren in den drei
ersten Kapiteln die Jünger auf der Seite des Protagonisten zu verorten, so be-
ginnt mit ihrem Unverständnis des Sämanngleichnisses ihre Entfremdung vom
Helden. Sie sehen und hören, aber sie verstehen nicht. Wind und Wellen hören
auf Jesus, seine Schüler hingegen fürchten sich (vgl. 4,41).
30 Vgl. W. Kahl, „Zur Interpretation des Neuen Testaments im sozio-kulturellen Kontext
Westafrikas,“ ZNT 5 (2000): 27–35, 31. Vgl. auch ders., New Testament Miracle Stories in Their
Religious-Historical Setting: A Religionsgeschichtliche Comparison from a Structural Perspective,
FRLANT 163 (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1994).
230 Stefan Alkier
Nachdem Jesus in den Versen 4,3–9 das so genannte „Gleichnis vom Sämann“
erzählt hat, fährt der Text in den Versen 10–12 folgendermaßen fort:
Und als er allein war, fragten ihn, die um ihn waren, samt den Zwölfen nach den Gleich-
nissen. Und er sprach zu ihnen: Euch ist das Geheimnis des Reiches Gottes gegeben:
denen aber draußen widerfährt es alles in Gleichnissen, damit sie es mit sehenden Augen
sehen und doch nicht erkennen, und mit hörenden Ohren hören und doch nicht ver-
stehen, damit sie sich nicht etwa bekehren und ihnen vergeben werde.31
Drinnen und Draußen sind im Markusevangelium nicht statisch verstanden.32

Erscheinen Jesu Schüler in Mk 4,10 als solche, die drinnen sind, so verdankt
sich das ihrer in den vorangegangenen Kapiteln erzählten Nachfolge Jesu. Dort,
wo sie Wort und Tat Jesu nicht folgen, sind sie draußen, also z. B. in 6,52: „Denn
sie“ – die Schüler – „waren nicht zur Einsicht gekommen, als das mit den Broten
geschah: ihr Herz war verstockt.“ Andererseits sind auch diejenigen, die draußen
sind, keine statische Größe. Die Auferweckungsbotschaft gilt zunächst denen,
die Jesus von Nazareth im Stich gelassen und ihn verraten haben, nämlich
seinen verstockten Jüngern (vgl. 16,7). Es kommt im Markusevangelium auf die
Frage an, wie gehört und gesehen wird. Nicht-Verstehen und Verstockung sind
gleichursprünglich gedacht. Das verstehende Hören im Sinne des Markusevan-
geliums erweist die so verstehenden Leser als nicht Verstockte, die also drinnen
sind. Das Markusevangelium fordert auf zu einer Lektüre, die die Lesenden als
verständig und deshalb als nicht verstockt und deshalb als drinnen erweist. Ob
die Lesenden zu denen zählen, die drinnen sind, oder zu denen, die draußen
sind, erweist sich durch ihre Weise der Lektüre.
Das Lesen des Markusevangeliums ist selbst ein visueller und auditiver
Vorgang. Die scriptio continua, also das Schriftbild in der Antike in Form an-
einander gereihter Buchstaben ohne Wortabstände, vieler Abkürzungen und
meistens ohne, seltener mit sparsamen Interpunktionen machte die Kulturtech-
nik des Lesens zu einem visuellen und akustischen Vorgang. Lesen war lautes
Lesen.33 Kristina Dronsch hat in ihrer Frankfurter Dissertationsschrift, die die
Bedeutung des Hörens in Mk 4 untersucht, überzeugend nachgewiesen, dass
Hören in Mk 4 das verstehende Hören im Leseakt thematisiert.34 Zudem findet
sie die Hörertypologien in der Deutung des Sämannsgleichnisses in Mk 4,13–20
im Markusevangelium selbst wieder. Die erste Hörergruppe bilden demzufolge
31 Intertextuelle Aspekte von Mk 4 habe ich an anderer Stelle untersucht: S. Alkier, „Die
Bibel im Dialog der Schriften und das Problem der Verstockung in Mk 4: Intertextualität im
Rahmen einer kategorialen Semiotik biblischer Texte,“ in Die Bibel im Dialog der Schriften:
Konzepte intertextueller Bibellektüre, hg. von S. Alkier und R. B. Hays, NET 10 (Tübingen:
Francke, 2005), 1–22.
32 Vgl. dazu ausführlicher Alkier, „Die Bibel im Dialog der Schriften,“ a. a. O.
33 Vgl. dazu J. Svenbro, Phrasikleia: Anthropologie de la lecture en Grèce ancienne, Textes à
l’appui (Paris: La Découverte, 1988).
34 Dronsch, Bedeutung als Grundbegriff neutestamentlicher Wissenschaft.
die Gegner Jesu, die ihn hören, aber sofort gegen ihn sind. Exemplarisch sei
auf die Schriftgelehrten in 2,6–7 verwiesen, die Jesus hören und das Gehörte
als Blasphemie klassifizieren, was dann auch der Anklagepunkt in 14,64 ist, der
Jesus ans Kreuz bringt. Die zweite Hörergruppe verweist auf diejenigen, die sein
Wort sofort aufnehmen, aber in der „Bedrängnis oder Verfolgung um des Wortes
willen“ sofort abfallen. Das hier verwendete εὐθύς begegnet tatsächlich in der
Berufungserzählung der ersten Jünger in Mk 1,16–20: Nach Jesu Aufforderung
zur Nachfolge heißt es: „Sofort (εὐθύς) verließen sie ihre Netze und folgten ihm
nach“ (1,18). In der Bedrängnissituation in Jerusalem nach der Gefangennahme
Jesu fallen sie aber alle ab, was besonders eindrücklich durch die dreifache Ver-
leugnung des Petrus dargestellt wird (14,66–72). Die dritte Hörergruppe, bei der
vor allem Reichtum und Begierden das Fruchtbringen des Wortes verhindern,
wird exemplarisch in der Erzählung vom reichen Jüngling dargestellt, den Jesus
lieb gewinnt. Jesus sagt ihm deshalb in Mk 10,21–22: „Eines fehlt dir. Geh hin,
verkaufe alles, was Du hast, und gib’s den Armen, so wirst Du einen Schatz im
Himmel haben, und komm und folge mir nach! Er aber wurde unmutig über das
Wort und ging traurig davon, denn er hatte viele Güter.“
Die vierte Gruppe nun, die das Wort hört und aufnimmt und Frucht bringt,
dreißigfach, ja sechzigfach und hundertfach, kann Dronsch zufolge nicht in der
Erzählung des Markusevangeliums wieder gefunden werden. Es ist die Leer-
stelle, die die Leserinnen und Leser des Markusevangeliums zu füllen haben.
Sie erweisen sich als diejenigen, die drinnen sind, wenn sie das Markusevan-
gelium verstehend lesen und ihm zustimmen und Frucht bringen. In Fort-
führung der Interpretation Dronschs lässt sich das Fruchtbringen durch die
Erfüllung der vom himmlischen Boten im Grab Jesu (16,6) geforderten Boten-
funktion interpretieren. Die Leserinnen und Leser des Markusevangeliums
erweisen sich als solche, die drinnen sind, wenn sie das Markusevangelium
verstehend hören bzw. lesen, es als Evangelium Jesu Christi, des Sohnes Gottes,
annehmen und seine Botschaft vom auferweckten Gekreuzigten als Evan-
gelium weiter tragen.
H. Die narrative und diskursive Vorbereitung

der Auferweckungsbotschaft
Das Markusevangelium selbst befähigt seine Leserinnen und Leser zu einem

solchen fruchtbringenden Hören, denn bereits nach Kapitel 4 wissen sie nicht
nur, wer Jesus ist, sondern sie kennen auch das Geheimnis seiner Wunder
wirkenden Kraft. Aber sie wissen noch nicht, dass diese Macht auch den Tod
zu besiegen in der Lage ist. Genau das wird aber nun schrittweise thematisiert.
Jesus befreit den in Grabhöhlen lebenden besessenen Gerasener von einer
ganzen Legion unreiner Geister und holt ihn damit aus den Grabhöhlen zurück
232 Stefan Alkier
in ein gemeinschaftliches Leben (vgl. 5,1–20). Direkt im Anschluss an diese Er-

zählung bewirkt die von Jesus ausgehende Kraft nicht nur die Heilung der blut-
flüssigen Frau, vielmehr wird auch seine Macht über den Tod in der Erzählung
von der Auferweckung der Tochter des Jairus offensichtlich (vgl. 5,21–43). Und
hier fällt auch wieder die Terminologie der Auferweckung: Jesus ergreift die
Hand des Mädchens und sagt zu ihr: ἔγειρε (erwache) (5,41c). Die Ähnlichkeit
dieses Erweckungsvorganges und die Übereinstimmung in der Semantik lässt
noch einmal an die Heilung der Schwiegermutter des Petrus erinnern. Hatte
Jesus sie aus der durch das Fieber bedingten Todesgefahr errettet, so ruft er mit
einer vergleichbaren Handlungsweise das tote Mädchen ins Leben zurück. Die
von Jesus bewirkte Totenerweckung wird als eine die Grenze des Todes über-
schreitende Wunderhandlung deutlich, die aber wie seine anderen Wunder auch
keine nachhaltigen kosmologischen Veränderungen mit sich bringen, sondern
punktuell auf die Beseitigung des jeweiligen Mangels zielen.
Das folgende 6. Kapitel fügt die beiden Erzählstränge zusammen. Es setzt die
euphorische Thematik des Todes und seiner Überwindung aus Kapitel 5 dys-
phorisch fort. In der Ablehnung Jesu in Nazareth (6,3) wird auch das Schicksal
der Propheten narrativ eingespielt (vgl. 6,4). Daran wird nicht nur die Gefähr-
lichkeit der sich anschließenden Aussendung der Jünger (6,7–13) deutlich,
sondern auch schon die Erzählung der Hinrichtung des Boten des Protagonisten
in einen Deutehorizont eingebunden. Johannes stirbt den Tod der Propheten
Gottes. Der gewaltsame Tod des Johannes (6,17–29) wiederum bereitet noch
vor den diskursiven Leidensankündigungen ab Kap 8 die Leser und Leserinnen
auf narrative Weise auf das gewaltsame Ende Jesu und dessen Grablegung (vgl.
6,29) vor.
Die erfolgreiche Mission der Jünger begründet das Wissen des Herodes um
Jesus und seine außergewöhnlichen Taten. Von den drei kursierenden Inter-
pretationen Jesu als Johannes, der von den Toten auferweckt wurde, als Elia oder
als einer der Propheten wählt Herodes die erste und erklärt damit zugleich die
Befähigung Jesu zu seinen Wundern (vgl. 6,14–16). Mit Blick auf die Frage nach
dem markinischen Auferweckungsdiskurs ist festzuhalten, dass die punktuelle
Auferweckung eines Toten im Horizont der Erwartung der breiten Öffentlich-
keit und auch in der Erwartung des politischen Machthabers Herodes steht. Die
Leser aber wissen, dass es sich um Fehlurteile handelt, die die wahre Identität
des Messias als Sohn Gottes nicht erkennen.
Aber nicht nur das Unverständnis der Menge und das des Herodes, sondern
mehr noch das sich verfestigende Unverständnis der Schüler Jesu (vgl. 8,14–21),
die die symbolische Botschaft der Wunder Jesu und insbesondere die der beiden
Speisungswunder nicht erkennen (vgl. 6,30–44; 8,1–10) und bei Jesu Gang auf
dem Wasser von Furcht ergriffen werden (vgl. 6,50), treiben den dysphorischen
Handlungsstrang ebenso voran wie die polemische Auseinandersetzung Jesu mit
den Pharisäern anlässlich der Frage nach rein und unrein (vgl. 7,1–23).
I. Die Peripetie in 8,29–32
„Die Peripetie ist […] der Umschlag dessen, was erreicht werden soll, in das
Gegenteil, und zwar, wie wir soeben sagten, gemäß der Wahrscheinlichkeit
oder mit Notwendigkeit.“35 Mk 1,1–3 und Mk 1,14–15 zeigten an, was erreicht
werden sollte: Die vorbereitete Annahme der Reich-Gottes-Botschaft des Mes-
sias. Am Ende des tragischen Teils aber steht genau das Gegenteil: der Kreuzes-
tod des von allen verlassenen Protagonisten. 8,29–32 schildert den Umschlag
von der erwünschten guten Aufnahme in das Tod bringende Unverständnis
auf hoch dramatische Weise: der engste Vertraute Jesu erscheint als schärfster
Widersacher, als Satan.
Insgesamt gesehen verstärken und beschleunigen die Kapitel 5–8 die Ver-
flechtung des euphorischen mit dem dysphorischen Handlungsstrang, aber erst
Jesu auf das Messiasbekenntnis des Petrus (vgl. 8,29) folgende Ankündigung
seines Todes und seiner Auferstehung (8,31–32a) bilden die Peripetie, den Um-
schwung der Erzählung, denn die Ankündigungen von Tod und Auferstehung
verflechten durch die mit δεῖ zum Ausdruck gebrachte Notwendigkeit des
Leidens des Menschensohns den euphorischen mit dem dysphorischen Hand-
lungsstrang, indem sie das dysphorische Element zu einer notwendigen Funk-
tion des euphorischen Elements erklären.
Die peripetische Funktion der ersten Leidensankündigung wird durch den
Erzählerkommentar eigens angezeigt: Jesus spricht dieses Wort in unverschlüs-
selter Rede, klar und offen (παρρησία). Petrus, der zwar Jesus trefflich in 8,29b
als Messias identifiziert, tritt entschieden gegen diese Verflechtung ein, indem er
das dysphorische Element, Leiden und Tod Jesu, aus dem euphorischen Hand-
lungsstrang des Wirkens des Messias herausnehmen möchte. Jesu harsche Re-
aktion auf Petrus disqualifiziert diese Trennung als nicht konform mit dem, was
Gott will (vgl. 8,33). Jesu Weg und damit auch der Weg der von ihm geforderten
Nachfolge ist der Kreuzesweg, wie Mk 8,34–3836 offen legt.
J. Das Unvermögen der Ingroup (dysphorisch) und das von

außen herangetragene Modell des Glaubens (euphorisch)
Weil Jesu Schüler diesen Zusammenhang nicht verstehen, verstehen sie Jesu Rede
von seiner Auferstehung auch nicht, was ihre Reaktion auf die Verklärungsszene
in 9,6 ebenso zeigt wie die 2. und 3. Leidensankündigung. Dabei wird den anwe-
senden Jüngern durch das Sehenlassen (9,4) von Elia und Mose bei gleichzeitiger
himmlischer Verklärung Jesu (vgl. 9,3) sichtbar, dass es dieses himmlische Leben
36 Auch hier ist auf den Wechsel von Aorist zu Präsens zu achten.
234 Stefan Alkier
gibt, und die Himmelsstimme, die sich nun direkt an sie wendet, offenbart ihnen,
dass Jesus der Sohn Gottes ist (vgl. 9,7). Jesus macht ihnen auf dem Rückweg
nochmals hörbar, dass er von den Toten auferstehen wird (vgl. 9,9). Sie sehen,
aber erkennen nicht, sie hören, aber sie verstehen nicht. Jesu engste Schüler ver-
stehen nicht, was die Rede vom Aufstehen der Toten bedeuten soll (vgl. 9,10).
Und ebenso wenig verstehen sie, dass Johannes der Bote des Messias Jesus war
(vgl. 9,11–18). Für die Leser hingegen wird die Identifikation des Johannes mit
dem Propheten Elia und sein gewaltsamer Tod als Prophetenschicksal nun noch
einmal aus dem Mund Jesu bestätigt (vgl. 9,13), womit er auch sich selbst zu
erkennen gibt. Aber die Schüler Jesu werden vom Erzähler des Markusevan-
geliums nicht mit hinreichender „Erkenntnisfähigkeit“37 ausgestattet, weil sein
dysphorischer Erzählstrang die dramatische Distanz zwischen Jesus und seinen
Schülern für die Inszenierung der Passionsgeschichte mit ihrem Schauder und
Mitleid erregenden Höhepunkt des einsamen Kreuzestodes Jesu benötigt.
Die sich anschließende Erzählung von der Heilung eines besessenen Jungen
(9,14–29) kann als Meisterleistung narrativer Theologie bezeichnet werden.
Jesu Schüler vermögen den Jungen nicht zu heilen. Der Vater des Jungen wendet
sich an den hinzukommenden Jesus. Jesu Reaktion zeigt die fortschreitende Iso-
lierung des Protagonisten deutlich an. Sein Zornesausbruch gegenüber seinen
Schülern stellt zugleich das theologische Thema des Glaubens in den diskur-
siven Mittelpunkt der Erzählung: „O du ungläubiges Geschlecht, wie lange muss
ich noch bei euch sein?“ (9,19b). Der Vorwurf des Unglaubens bezieht sich nicht
etwa auf die, die Jesus nicht folgen, sondern auf seine eigenen Schüler.
Der Vater wendet sich nicht an Jesus, weil er seiner Botschaft gefolgt wäre,
sondern weil er auf die Wunderkräfte eines außergewöhnlichen Menschen
hofft. Das wird durch die einschränkende Formulierung deutlich: „Wenn Du
aber etwas kannst, so erbarme dich unser und hilf uns“ (9,22b). Jesu Antwort
darauf stellt den Glauben in den Mittelpunkt des Geschehens: „Alles ist möglich,
dem der glaubt“ (9,23b). Die emotionale Reaktion des Vaters darauf schreit die
Unfähigkeit der Selbstkonstituierung des Glaubens heraus und er gibt sich ver-
trauensvoll und ängstlich zugleich in die Hand Jesu: „Ich glaube. Hilf meinem
Unglauben“ (9,24b). Mit dem Eingeständnis des Unglaubens wird der Vater kon-
gruent mit den ungläubigen Jüngern, und zugleich weist er mit dieser Einsicht
den Weg aus der Verstockung.
Nachdem der sprachlos und taub machende Geist aus dem Jungen effektvoll
ausgefahren ist, liegt das Kind wie tot am Boden, „so dass die Menge sagt: Er
ist gestorben“ (9,26–27). Der sich anschließende Vers 27 bestätigt hingegen das
Gelingen des Exorzismus mit einer Formulierung, die bereits bei der Heilung
37 Vgl. Aristoteles, Poet. 6, 1449b36–37, übers. von Fuhrmann, Aristoteles: Poetik, 19:
“Nun geht es um Nachahmung von Handlung, und es wird von Handelnden gehandelt, die
notwendigerweise wegen ihres Charakters und ihrer Erkenntnisfähigkeit eine bestimmte Be-
schaffenheit haben.“
der Schwiegermutter des Petrus und bei der Erweckung der Tochter des Jairus
Verwendung fand. Jesus ergreift seine Hand und erweckte (ἤγειρεν) ihn und er
stand auf (ἀνέστη). Erstmals im Markusevangelium fallen beide Terminologien
der Auferweckung in einer Erzählung und die Reihenfolge ist von Bedeutung.
Die Aktivität des Wundertäters wird durch das Verb „erwecken“ zum Ausdruck
gebracht und die dadurch ermöglichte Handlung des Objekts der Erweckung als
„aufstehen“ bezeichnet.
Es ist wohl kaum ein absichtsloser Zufall, dass sich an die narrative Inszenie-
rung des Glaubensmodells die zweite Ankündigung von Tod und Auferstehung
anschließt. Die Reaktion der Schüler Jesu darauf zeigt die Verfestigung ihres
Unverständnisses an, das nun in ein furchtsames Schweigen übergeht: „Sie aber
verstanden das Wort nicht und fürchteten sich, ihn zu fragen“ (9,32). Wie später
bei den Frauen am Grab führt hier die Furcht der Männer zum Verstummen.
Statt die wahre Identität Jesu zu erkennen, streiten die Schüler Jesu darum,
wer der größte von ihnen sei (9,33–37). Das gibt Jesus Anlass, über die vom
Dienst für den anderen bestimmte Rangordnung im Reich Gottes zu sprechen.
Der Dienst am anderen wird als Dienst an Jesus und der Dienst an Jesus als
Gottesdienst erklärt (vgl. 9,37). Von da aus wird die Thematik von zukünftigem
Lohn und zukünftiger Strafe entfaltet (vgl. 9,41–50).
Der Abschnitt 9,41–50 fügt in das Diskursuniversum des Markusevangeliums
unmissverständlich die jüdische Vorstellung der eschatologischen Strafe ein.
Mit der Höllenstrafe werden zweierlei Vergehen belegt: die Verführung anderer
zum Abfall und der eigene Abfall. Positiv wird denjenigen, die auf dem Weg der
Nachfolge bleiben, das Leben im Reich Gottes zugesagt. Der Abschnitt zeigt die
Ernsthaftigkeit der markinischen Botschaft an: Es geht dem Markusevangelium
nicht lediglich um das Verstehen einer schönen Geschichte, sondern darum, die
Lesenden vor dem Weg in die Gehenna zu bewahren38 und ihnen den Weg ins
Leben als Kreuzesnachfolge zu weisen. Man kann das Leben gewinnen, man
kann es aber auch verlieren.
Das 10. Kapitel schildert Jesu Ankunft in Judäa und seinen Weg nach
Jerusalem. Dabei wird das Thema der Nachfolge vertieft. Das Reich Gottes soll
man vertrauensvoll annehmen wie ein Kind (10,13–16). Reichtum behindert
die Nachfolge erheblich (10,17–27). Die Nachfolge wird schon jetzt belohnt
(10,28–31). Das ewige Leben ist der Lohn der Nachfolge in der kommenden
Welt (10,30c).
Das Thema der Nachfolge wird mit dem von Kreuz und Auferstehung durch
die dritte Leidensankündigung verknüpft: „Während sie auf dem Weg hinauf
nach Jerusalem waren, ging Jesus voraus.“ (10,32). In Jerusalem wird Jesus ihnen
38 Vgl. D. C. Allison, Jr., Resurrecting Jesus: The Earliest Christian Tradition and Its Inter-
preters (New York: T&T Clark, 2005), „The Problem of Gehenna“ (56–110): „Maybe a Jesus
who says nothing about hell is the artefact of interested historians who themselves have nothing
to say about hell, or at least nothing good to say“ (58).
236 Stefan Alkier
sagen, dass sein Vorausgehen nicht mit dem Tod enden wird, sondern er ihnen
nach seiner Auferweckung nach Galiläa vorausgehen wird (vgl. 14,28). Und
genau an diese Zusage erinnert der Bote im Grab die Frauen (vgl. 16,7).
Jesu Gang voraus nach Jerusalem wird von seinen Nachfolgerinnen und
Nachfolgern als bedrohlich empfunden: „sie packte Entsetzen; die ihm nach-
folgten wurden von Furcht ergriffen.“ Daraufhin wendet sich Jesus an die Zwölf
und kündet ihnen erneut seinen Leidensweg und seine Auferstehung an (vgl.
10,32–34). Wieder schließt sich als Reaktion darauf das Thema von Herrschen
und Dienen an und in diesem Zusammenhang fällt die einzige explizite Deutung
des Todes Jesu im Markusevangelium: „Denn auch der Menschensohn ist nicht
gekommen, dass er sich dienen lasse, sondern dass er diene und sein Leben gebe
als Lösegeld für viele“ (10,45).
Auch die sich anschließende Erzählung von der Heilung des blinden Barti-
mäus in Jericho führt das Thema der Nachfolge fort. Ihr Schlusssatz bestätigt auf
der Erzählebene das Gelingen des Wunders. Die pragmatische Botschaft nutzt
die Symbolik von Blindsein und Sehen: Vertrauen macht sehend und führt auf
den Weg der Nachfolge (vgl. 10,52).
K. Die Tragödie in Jerusalem
Der in Kapitel 11,1–10 erzählte Einzug Jesu in Jerusalem scheint die Furcht der
Jünger Lügen zu strafen. Euphorisch wird Jesus als Sohn Davids empfangen.
Doch schon die seltsame Notiz, Jesus kundschaftete den Tempel aus und ver-
ließ danach Jerusalem, um mit den Zwölfen in Bethanien zu übernachten (vgl.
11,11b), dämpft die euphorische Erwartungshaltung der vorangegangenen Er-
zählung.
Die in 11,12 mit dem nächsten Tag fortgeführte Erzählung spitzt dann den
Konflikt immer weiter zu. In der Episode vom Feigenbaum wird Jesu göttlicher
Zorn und seine zu absoluter Vernichtung fähige Macht eingespielt (vgl. 11,12–
14.20–25). Sie gibt zu verstehen, dass Jesus durch seine Verbundenheit mit Gott
über die Mittel verfügt, seine Peiniger zu töten. Jesu Weg ans Kreuz ist Mk zu-
folge nicht der Weg eines machtlosen Opfers. Von der ersten öffentlichen Hand-
lung in Jerusalem am Beginn des zweiten Tages an lässt die Erzählung an den
Machtverhältnissen keine Zweifel: Jesu Gegner spielen mit ihrer Vernichtung.
Genau diese symbolisiert die sogenannte Tempelreinigung (11,15–19),39 die
zum endgültigen Todesbeschluss der Hohenpriester und der Schriftgelehrten
führt. Sie reagieren damit auf die provozierende Handlung des agressiven Jesus.
39 Vgl. dazu S. Alkier und S. Karweick, „‚So hab’ ich Jesus ja noch nie erlebt!‘ Die sogenann-
te ‚Tempelreinigung‘ in der sechsten Klasse einer Realschule,“ in „Man hat immer ein Stück Gott
in sich“: Mit Kindern biblische Geschichten deuten, Teil 2: Neues Testament, hg. von G. Büttner,
Jahrbuch für Kindertheologie Sonderband (Stuttgart: Calwer, 2006), 150–67.
Dass sie ihn nicht gleich verhaften, liegt an ihrer Furchtergriffenheit, die mit
demselben Verb ausgedrückt wird wie die der Jünger und die der Frauen am
Grab: ἐφοβοῦντο (11,32; 16,8).
Die folgenden Streitgespräche werden von Jesu Gegnern initiiert, der sich
auch in dieser Defensive als ihnen überlegen erweist. Eines dieser Streitgesprä-
che behandelt explizit das Thema der Auferstehung der Toten.
Das Streitgespräch mit den Sadduzäern über die Auferstehung der Toten
(12,18–27) lässt die Leserinnen und Leser des Markusevangeliums lernen,
Auferstehung zu denken. Die „Sadduzäer, die behaupten, es gebe keine Auf-
erstehung“ (12,18), wollen Jesus mit einer Frage ad absurdum führen: Eine Frau
war nacheinander mit sieben Brüdern verheiratet: „Wessen Frau wird sie nun
bei der Auferstehung sein?“ (12,23a). Jesus hingegen tritt entschieden für die
Realität der Auferstehung ein:
Ihr irrt, weil ihr weder die Schrift kennt noch die Kraft Gottes. Wenn sie von den Toten
auferstehen werden, so werden sie weder heiraten noch sich heiraten lassen, sondern sie
sind, wie die Engel im Himmel. Aber von den Toten, dass sie auferstehen, habt ihr nicht
gelesen im Buch des Mose, bei dem Dornbusch, wie Gott zu ihm sagte und sprach: „Ich
bin der Gott Abrahams und der Gott Isaaks und der Gott Jakobs“? Gott ist nicht ein Gott
der Toten, sondern der Lebenden. Ihr irrt sehr. (12,24b–27)
Diese Perikope ist in mehrfacher Hinsicht aufschlussreich. Sie zeigt, dass der
Glaube an den Gott Israels nicht notwendig mit der Erwartung der Auferstehung
der Toten verknüpft war.40 Jesus wirft den Sadduzäern nicht Unglauben, sondern
einen Mangel an Schrift- und Gotteskenntnis vor. Zudem wird deutlich, dass das,
was mit der Auferstehung der Toten gemeint ist, strittig war. Die Sadduzäer den-
ken sie als Wiederherstellung der Verhältnisse vor dem Tod. Da diese Annahme
aber zu absurden Konsequenzen führt, lehnen sie sie ab. Jesus hingegen versteht
die Auferstehung der Toten nicht als Wiederherstellung vorheriger Zustände,
sondern als Verwandlung in eine engelsgleiche Seinsweise, deren Realität für
ihn und seine jüdischen Gegner unzweifelhaft ist. Besonders hervorzuheben ist,
dass die Frage nach der Realität der Auferstehung sich für Jesus am Schrift- und
am Gottesverständnis entscheidet. Weil die Sadduzäer weder „die Schrift“ noch
„die Kraft Gottes“ kennen, irren sie. Und schließlich ist in dieser Perikope die
Realität der Auferstehung keine Frage eines emotionalen Meinens, sondern eine
Frage theologischen Denkens. Jesus argumentiert gegen die Sadduzäer nicht mit
Verben des Glaubens oder Meinens, sondern mit Verben des Wissens. Wer die
Schrift kennt und um die Kraft Gottes weiß, der weiß auch um die Realität der
Auferstehung. Wer darum nicht weiß, irrt.
40 Vgl. dazu die Ausführungen von J. Becker, Die Auferstehung Jesu Christi nach dem Neuen
Testament: Ostererfahrung und Osterverständnis im Urchristentum (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck,
2007), 182–208.
238 Stefan Alkier
Jesus zitiert die Schrift als Ausgangsbasis der zu treffenden Schlussfolgerung:

„Ich bin der Gott Abrahams, der Gott Isaaks und der Gott Jakobs“ (vgl. 12,26c;
Ex 3,6.15b). Jesus wählt für seine Position die Selbstoffenbarung Gottes vor Mose
aus, eine Basis, die im Rahmen jüdischen enzyklopädischen Wissens stärker nicht
sein konnte. Zu diesem unumstrittenen Satz fügt er einen zweiten hinzu: „Gott
ist ein Gott der Lebenden und nicht der Toten.“ Das an die Sadduzäer gerichtete
„Ihr irrt sehr“ fordert zugleich die Lesenden auf, die Schlussfolgerung zu ziehen:
Gott vermag Tote zu erwecken. Diese Schlussfolgerung wurde vorbereitet mit
der Angabe, womit Gott die Toten erwecken kann: mit seiner ihm eigenen Kraft,
der Kraft Gottes (vgl. Mk 12,24). Durch den Hinweis auf die engelsgleiche Seins-
weise wird die Auferstehungshoffnung vorstellbar. Allein dem Gott Israels wird
die Fähigkeit zugeschrieben, Tote zu erwecken.
Die Auferstehung der Toten geschieht als Auferweckung durch die Kraft Gottes.
Den Toten haftet keine Eigenschaft an, etwas zu ihrer Auferweckung beizutragen.
Sie sind gänzlich tot und damit handlungsunfähig. Auferstehung ist dem Markus-
evangelium zufolge kein Bestandteil der Anthropologie, sondern ausschließlich
der Theologie. Sie gehört zur Rede von Gott und zwar der Rede von dem Gott
Abrahams, Isaaks und Jakobs, wie ihn Jesus im Evangelium verkündet.
Es ist bezeichnend, dass Jesus gerade nicht die Totenerweckungen des Elia
(1Kön 17,17–24) und des Elisa (2Kön 4,31–37; 13,21) als Argument heranzieht,
die ja auch zeigten, dass Gottes Kraft nicht vom Tod begrenzt wird. Selbst die
Zitation von 1Sam 2,6 wäre aber für die Argumentation Jesu nicht weitreichend
genug gewesen: „Jahwe lässt sterben und leben, stößt in die Scheol hinunter
und führt wieder herauf “. Jesus stellt mit seiner Antwort klar, dass es bei der
Auferstehung der Toten nicht um eine wunderbare Fortführung des bekannten
Lebens geht, sondern um eine neue und endgültige Seinsweise, die den Tod
hinter sich gelassen hat, nachdem er durchlitten wurde.
Der eschatologische Aspekt der Auferweckung wird verstärkt durch die apoka-
lyptische Rede Jesu in Mk  13. Jesus belehrt seine Schüler Petrus, Jakobus, Johannes
und Andreas über die kommende Zeit seiner Abwesenheit, die als Schreckenszeit
vor dem endgültigen Ende des gegenwärtigen Zeitalters zu verorten ist. Bevor
das Ende eintreten kann, muss „allen Völkern zuerst das Evangelium verkündet
werden“. Da das Markusevangelium selbst Medium dieser Verkündigung ist, wird
die Lektüre des Markusevangeliums zu einem apokalyptischen Akt, der wie das
Leiden und Auferstehen des Gekreuzigten und die Leiden der Endzeit (vgl. 13,7c)
notwendige Voraussetzung des Kommenden ist. Umberto Eco’s Buchtitel Lector
in fabula bringt die Pragmatik des Markusevangeliums prägnant auf den Punkt.
Durch die Verschränkung der Zeiten im Leseakt befinden sich die Lesenden in-
mitten der erzählten Geschichte. Eine distanzierte Lektüre ist keine Möglichkeit
für die angestrebte Rezeption des Markusevangeliums. Es geht vielmehr darum,
selbst zu Verkündigerinnen und Verkündigern des Evangeliums zu werden. Die
Lektüre findet mitten in den apokalyptischen Wirren der Endzeit statt.
Die Verse 13,24–27 formulieren das Ende der Endzeit und deuten an, wo
sich der abwesende Menschensohn während der Endzeit aufhält: „Und dann
werden sie sehen den Menschensohn kommen in den Wolken mit großer Kraft
und Herrlichkeit“ (13,26).
Dem Verlangen der Schüler, den Zeitpunkt des Anfangs der Endzeit zu er-
fahren, begegnet Jesus mit dem Aufruf zur Wachsamkeit und der Gewissheit,
dass die Endzeit unmittelbar vor der Tür steht: „Wahrlich, ich sage Euch: Dieses
Geschlecht wird nicht vergehen, bis dies alles geschieht. Himmel und Erde wer-
den vergehen, meine Worte aber werden nicht vergehen“ (13,30–31). Niemand –
nicht einmal die Engel und auch der Sohn Gottes nicht – kennt den Zeitpunkt
des Endgeschehens (vgl. 13,32), aber alle Lesenden des Markusevangeliums
kennen die Worte Jesu und sie bestätigen mit diesem Wissen die Unvergänglich-
keit seiner Worte. Sie werden sogar in der Endzeitrede als Lesende imperativisch
angesprochen: „der/die Lesende begreife!“ (13,14b).
Wie der Gleichnisrede in Mk 4, so kommt auch der Endzeitrede in Mk 13
eine das gesamte Evangelium deutende Funktion zu. Das verstehende Lesen des
Markusevangeliums ist Teil des kosmologischen Aktes, zu dem auch Tod und
Auferweckung des Gekreuzigten gehören und an dessen Ende das Kommen des
Menschensohns und das ewige Leben im Reich Gottes für diejenigen stehen
wird, die ihm nachfolgen, indem sie die Botschaft des Markusevangeliums mit
ihrem eigenen Leben weiter tragen, also ihr Kreuz auf sich nehmen (vgl. 8,34).
Die tragische Zuspitzung des dysphorischen Erzählstranges in den Kapiteln
14 und 15 durch den Verrat des Judas, die Verleugnung des Petrus, die Folterung,
Verspottung und Ermordung des Protagonisten und seines Todesrufes am Kreuz
wird von zwei Textpassagen unterbrochen, die auf die Zeit der Lektüre des Evan-
geliums verweisen.
Direkt im Anschluss an die Endzeitrede wird die Absicht seiner Gegner
wiederholt, ihn zu töten. Die Erzählung von der Salbung in Bethanien mit einem
kostbaren Öl nimmt vorweg, was die Frauen im Grab zu tun gedenken. Jesus
verteidigt die Handlung der ihn salbenden Frau und schließt die Erzählung mit
den Worten: „Wahrlich, ich sage euch: Wo das Evangelium gepredigt wird in
aller Welt, da wird man auch das sagen zu ihrem Gedächtnis, was sie jetzt getan
hat“ (14,9). Die Lektüre des Markusevangeliums bestätigt diese Voraussage.
Unmittelbar darauf beschließt Judas, Jesus zu verraten (vgl. 14,10–11). Darauf
folgt die Erzählung vom letzten Mahl (14,12–25). In dieser Erzählung stiftet die
Identifikation des Brotes mit dem Leib Jesu und die Identifikation des Weines mit
seinem Blut eine Zeichenbeziehung, die die leibhaftige Gemeinschaft mit Jesus
über die Präsenz seines irdischen Leibes hinaus ermöglicht. Die Materialität von
Brot und Wein repräsentiert seinen Leib auch dann, wenn er abwesend ist.41
41 Vgl. K. Dronsch, „Text-Ma(h)le: Die skriptuale Funktion des Abendmahls in Mk 14,“ in

Eine ungewöhnliche und harmlose Speise? Von den Entwicklungen frühchristlicher Abendmahls-
240 Stefan Alkier
Die ergreifende Szene im Garten von Gethsemane (vgl. 14,32–42) wehrt jede
todessehnsüchtige Märtyrerideologie ab. Jesus will nicht sterben. Er bittet Gott
darum, einen anderen Weg zu wählen, und willigt zugleich ein, den Weg ans
Kreuz zu gehen, wenn es Gottes Wille sei (vgl. 14,35–36).
Damit wird auch der Verurteilungsszene ihre Macht genommen. Das Todes-
urteil aufgrund von Blasphemie greift nur auf, was seine Gegner schon in 3,6
dachten. Sie erzielen im Verlauf der Erzählung keinen Erkenntnisfortschritt.
Jesus spricht offen aus, dass er der Messias ist und identifiziert sich mit dem
kommenden Menschensohn: „Ich bin es und ihr werdet den Menschensohn sit-
zen sehen zur Rechten der Macht und kommen mit den Wolken des Himmels“
(14,62). Jesus greift hier eine Passage der Endzeitrede in Mk 13 (vgl. 13,26) auf
und die Lesenden können sich ein konkreteres Bild davon machen, wo sich Jesus
nach seinem Tod aufhält. Auch die Begleitung seiner Kreuzigung durch Fins-
ternis (vgl. 15,33) erzeugt intratextuelle Bezüge zur Endzeitrede in Mk 13 und
unterstreicht den apokalyptischen Horizont des Geschehens.
Kapitel 15 erzählt die Kreuzigung Jesu, die zu seinem Tod führt, der aus-
drücklich in 15,37 festgehalten wird: Jesus hauchte das Leben restlos aus
(ἐξέπνευσεν). So wie das in Gen 2,7 beschriebene Einblasen des Lebensatems
den Menschen zu einem lebendigen Wesen macht, lässt ihn das Aushauchen
dieses Lebensatems zu einem leblosen Leichnam werden. Jesus ist ohne jede
Einschränkung tot. Josef von Arimathäa, „ein angesehener Ratsherr, der auch
auf das Reich Gottes wartete“, wie 15,43 zu lesen gibt, erbittet von Pontius Pilatus
den Leichnam, wickelt ihn in ein Tuch, legt ihn in ein Felsengrab und verschließt
den Eingang des Grabes, indem er einen Stein davor wälzt (vgl. 15,45–46). Das
beobachten Maria aus Magdala und Maria, die Mutter des Joses (vgl. 15,47). Das
alles geschieht am Vortag des Sabbats (vgl. 15,42).
Die messianische Verkündigung der Reich Gottes Botschaft hat Schritt für
Schritt zur Tragödie am Kreuz geführt. Der dysphorische Erzählstrang do-
minierte über den euphorischen Erzählstrang, wenn nicht die Peripetie den
dysphorischen Erzählstrang in den Dienst des euphorischen Erzählstrangs ge-
stellt hätte und damit die komische Fortsetzung der Erzählung auf stimmige und
nachvollziehbare Weise ermöglicht hätte.
L. Das komische Unverständnis

der Frauen am Grab
„Die Komödie ist […] Nachahmung von schlechteren Menschen, aber nicht im
Hinblick auf jede Art von Schlechtigkeit, sondern nur insoweit, als das Lächer-
traditionen, hg. von J. Hartenstein, S. Petersen und A. Standhartinger (Gütersloh: Gütersloher

Verlagshaus, 2008), 157–79.
liche am Häßlichen teilhat. Das Lächerliche ist nämlich ein mit Häßlichkeit
verbundener Fehler.“42
Der Schlussabschnitt des Markusevangeliums setzt in 16,1 mit der zeitlichen
Angabe ein, „als der Sabbat vergangen war“. Die beiden Marias gehen mit dem
Wissen, wo der Leichnam des Gekreuzigten zu finden ist, zusammen mit Salome
zum Grab, in der Absicht, den Leichnam zu salben. Die Lächerlichkeit der Hand-
lung der Frauen wird schon damit eröffnet, dass sie doch um den Stein vor dem
Grab wissen (vgl. 15,47), ihnen das Problem aber erst auf dem Weg klar wird. Als
sie sich fragen, wer ihnen wohl den Stein vom Grab wegwälzen könnte, sehen
sie, „dass der Stein schon weggewälzt war“ (16,4). Sie betreten das Grab, sehen
einen jungen Mann dort sitzen, der ein weißes Gewand trägt und sie werden
von Furcht ergriffen. Diese Reaktion wird im griechischen Text passiv im Aorist
ausgedrückt, eine dem Griechischen eigentümliche Zeitform, die punktuelle
Handlungen bezeichnet, ἐξεθαμβήθησαν: Sie wurden jäh von Furcht ergriffen.43
Diese spontane Reaktion zeigt, dass die drei Frauen lächerlicher Weise gar nicht
auf die Auferweckungsbotschaft vorbereitet sind. Die Handlungsabsicht, den
Leichnam des Gekreuzigten zu salben (vgl. 16,1), rechnet uneingeschränkt mit
der Faktizität des Todes. Die Frauen beobachteten, wie der Leichnam vor dem
Sabbat in das Grab gelegt wurde, und die Macht und die Wirklichkeit des Todes
ist ihnen so unstrittig, dass sie getrost den Sabbat abwarten können, denn der
Leichnam hat in der Logik des Todes nicht die Kraft, aufzustehen und wegzuge-
hen. Was sie aber am und im Grab sehen, durchbricht ihre von der Plausibilitäts-
struktur des Todes geprägte Erwartungshaltung und Intention.
Der junge Mann, der durch die Sprache der Kleidung im Markusevangelium
als himmlische Gestalt markiert wird (vgl. Mk 9,3) und dessen Rede ihn dann
vollends als himmlischen Boten zu erkennen gibt, nimmt die Furchtergriffenheit
der Frauen wahr und weist sie als unangemessene Reaktion auf das Gesehene
imperativisch mit demselben Verb ab: μὴ ἐκθαμβεῖσθε.44 Mit dem Wechsel
vom Aorist zum Präsens weist er die punktuelle Furchtergriffenheit der Frauen
mit der Aufforderung zurück, sich generell nicht mehr von Furcht ergreifen
zu lassen. Sodann gibt er den Grund dafür an: „Ihr sucht Jesus von Nazareth,
den Gekreuzigten. Er wurde auferweckt. Er ist nicht hier. Siehe da, wo sie ihn
hinlegten“ (16,6b). Der himmlische Bote gibt den Frauen zu verstehen, dass er
weiß, wen sie suchen: Jesus von Nazareth, den Gekreuzigten. Ἐσταυρωμένον ist
ein medio-passives Partizip Perfekt. Das Perfekt bezeichnet eine Handlung, die
in der Vergangenheit liegt, deren Wirkung aber in die Gegenwart hineinreicht.
Jesus von Nazareth ist gekreuzigt worden und die Kreuzigung gehört von da an
bleibend zu seiner leibhaftigen Identität. Es ist dieser Gekreuzigte, der in einem
43 Ἐξεθαμβήθησαν ist 3. Person Plural Aorist Passiv Indikativ von ἐκθαμβέομαι und sollte
auch passivisch übersetzt werden.
44 2. Person Plural Imperativ Präsens Medio-Passiv.
242 Stefan Alkier
einmaligen Geschehen auferweckt worden ist. Das Verb ἠγέρθη, das seine Auf-
erweckung ausdrückt, steht im Aorist Indikativ Passiv und bezeichnet damit
ebenfalls einen punktuellen Vorgang, der in der Vergangenheit liegt. Das Passiv
ist dabei als passivum divinum aufzufassen, das eine Tat Gottes ehrfurchtsvoll
zum Ausdruck bringt. Der himmlische Bote bekundet den Frauen die Auf-
erweckung des gekreuzigten Jesus von Nazareth durch Gott.
An diese Botschaft schließt sich der Auftrag an, nun selbst zu Botinnen
zu werden: „Geht aber hin und sagt seinen Jüngern und Petrus, dass er Euch
vorausgeht nach Galiläa. Dort werdet ihr ihn sehen, wie er es Euch gesagt hat“
(16,7). Die der Auferweckungsbotschaft angemessene Reaktion ist nicht das Ver-
harren in der Furcht, sondern vielmehr selbst zum Boten, zur Botin dieser guten
Nachricht, des Evangeliums, zu werden.
Die Frauen aber sind nicht in der Lage, die Auferweckungsbotschaft als
Evangelium zu hören, wie es eindrücklich der bereits oben zitierte Schlusssatz
des Markusevangeliums formuliert: „Und nachdem sie herausgegangen waren,
flohen sie vom Grab, denn Zittern und Entsetzen hatte sie ergriffen. Und sie
sagten niemandem etwas, sie fürchteten sich nämlich“ (16,8). Weder die visuelle
Wahrnehmung des leeren Grabes noch die auditive Wahrnehmung der Auf-
erweckungsbotschaft sind hinreichend, um das Ereignis als Evangelium zu ver-
stehen. Die Frauen am und im Grab sehen mit sehenden Augen und erkennen
nicht, sie hören mit hörenden Ohren, aber verstehen nicht (vgl. 4,12).
Das lächerliche Handeln der Frauen am Grab bildet in pragmatischer Text-
funktion die Negativfolie des angemessenen und erwünschten Handelns der
Lesenden. Die Frauen reihen sich mit ihrer hässlichen Verweigerung der Ver-
kündigung der Auferweckungsbotschaft in das pragmatische Motiv des Jünger-
unverständnisses ein, das immer wieder die Schüler Jesu von Furcht ergriffen
sein lässt und sie zu lächerlichen Reaktionen führt.45 Dass die Lesenden aber
um die Lächerlichkeit dieser Verweigerung wissen können, ist die erzählerische
Meisterleistung dieses Evangeliums, das keiner Erscheinungsgeschichten des
auferweckten Gekreuzigten bedarf, weil die offene Rolle derjenigen, die das
Wort hören und Frucht bringen, von den Lesenden selbst ausgefüllt sein will.
Die Erzählung des Mk wird zur guten Nachricht, zum Evangelium, für alle, die
seine Geschichte weitererzählen.
45 Vgl. Mk 4,10–13.41; 6,49–50; 8,16–21; 9,6. 10. 32; 10,32. Vgl. zur Interpretation des Jün-
gerunverständnisses im Markusevangelium W. Wrede, Das Messiasgeheimnis in den Evangelien:
Zugleich ein Beitrag zum Verständnis des Markusevangeliums, 4. Aufl. (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck
& Ruprecht, 1969); R. C. Tannehill, „Die Jünger im Markusevangelium: Die Funktion einer
Erzählfigur,“ in Hahn, Der Erzähler des Evangeliums, 37–66.
Mark’s Mysterious ‘Beginning’ (1:1–3)
as the Hermeneutical Code to Mark’s
‘Messianic Secret’1
David P. Moessner
In Honor of Prof. Dr. Cilliers Breytenbach, Humboldt University Berlin
The “beginning” of Mark’s “good news” (ἀρχὴ τοῦ εὐαγγελίου Ἰησοῦ Χριστοῦ
[υἱοῦ θεοῦ], Mark 1:1), followed by scripture citations (1:2–3),2 continues to baf-
fle exegetes. First is the usual puzzlement about εὐαγγέλιον (1:1) and whether it
refers to Jesus’s preaching of “good news” as placarded for his Galilee itinerancy
in 1:14–15, etc.; or, only to the initial, opening scene of Mark with the preaching
and baptizing of John the Baptizer (1:4–8); or, as one word of the incipit (1:1) of
the book eventually known as “Mark,” functioning thereby as metonymy for a
new type of content or even “genre” of literature, a so-called “good news book,”
the “Gospel,” etc.?3
1 A shorter version was first presented at the TCU Conference on the Gospels, November
14, 2018. My special thanks to Dr. R. M. Calhoun for his careful editing.
2 Six italicized lines in NA28, five italicized in NA27.
3 See, e. g., M. E. Boring, Mark: A Commentary, NTL (Louisville, KY: Westminster John
Knox, 2006), 29–53, who surveys in detail interpreters’ conclusions regarding Mark 1:1–3:
the meaning of “beginning” and “the beginning of the gospel” (1:1); the relation of 1:1 to the
scriptural citations in 1:2–3, and the relation of 1:1–3 to the larger preface 1:1–15. His own
conclusion regarding “gospel” (εὐαγγέλιον) is that it “refers not to a book but to the good news
of God’s saving action in Jesus Christ … proclaimed by the church … derives from and is in
continuity with the gospel Jesus himself preached.” In an earlier article, Boring had emphasized:
“εὐαγγέλιον is an objective genitive referring … to the contents and subject matter of Mark’s
narrative as a whole … to the story of Jesus, not the Markan discourse, to what is told, not the tale”
(“Mark 1:1–15 and the Beginning of the Gospel,” Semeia 52 [1990]: 43–81). Cf. W. Marxsen,
Der Evangelist Markus: Studien zur Redaktionsgeschichte des Evangeliums, 2nd ed., FRLANT
n. F. 49 (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck und Ruprecht, 1959), 17–32; J. M. Robinson, The Problem of
History in Mark and Other Marcan Studies (Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1982), 69–72; A. Yar-
bro Collins, The Beginning of the Gospel: Probings of Mark in Context (Minneapolis: Fortress,
1992), 1–38; J. Marcus, The Way of the Lord: Christological Exegesis of the Old Testament in
the Gospel of Mark (Louisville, KY: Westminster John Knox Press, 1992), 12–17; E.‑M. Becker,
Das Markus-Evangelium im Rahmen antiker Historiographie, WUNT 194 (Tübingen: Mohr Sie-
beck, 2006); C. A. Evans, “The Beginning of the Good News and the Fulfillment of Scripture in
the Gospel of Mark,” in Hearing the Old Testament in the New Testament, ed. S. E. Porter (Grand
Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 2006), 83–103, esp. 98–102; E. Schweizer, The Good News according to
Mark, trans. D. H. Madvig (Atlanta: John Knox, 1970), 28–36; C. I. K. Story, The Beginning of
244 David P. Moessner
Second is the equally confounding hybrid of the three scriptures, introduced

as “just as it stands written in the prophet Isaiah” (1:2–3), but where only the
last three of the six cited lines (in the NA28), viz., 1:3, is an actual quotation from
the prophet Isaiah (Isa 40:3, LXX). Did Mark cite these texts from memory and
confuse the first two, namely, Exod 23:20 and Mal 3:1, as part of Isaiah?
More significantly, what relation do these “three Isaiah” texts have with the
text of Mark that follows? Again, options similar to those of εὐαγγέλιον in 1:1
have been proposed: the focus on a “messenger” or “voice” “preparing the way
of the Lord” (ἑτοιμάσατε τὴν ὁδὸν κυρίου, 1:3) introduces primarily the role of
John the Baptist as fulfilling scripture in a larger action of God for salvation; as
this “voice,” John’s baptism of repentance leads inexorably to Jesus’s anointing by
the Holy Spirit.4 Or, “the way of the Lord” is picked up again most auspiciously
in Mark’s mini-travel narrative with ὁδός figuring in 10:17, 32 and 52, etc., so
that Isa 40:3 in Mark 1:3 prefigures the whole “way of the Lord” Jesus from his
baptism by the Spirit (1:9–11) “all the way” to the cross in 15:22 where Roman
soldiers “marshal him” (φέρουσιν) to “the place of the skull.”5 Or, these “mes-
senger” texts simply cast an eschatological hue over the whole of Mark – viz.,
the story of Jesus will indeed consummate the hopes and fears of final salvation
and universal judgment through God’s own coming as silhouetted through the
inimitable imagery of the prophet Isaiah.
At the heart of the ambiguity of Mark’s archē then looms the central question:
What do the Exodus and Malachi texts have to do with the “way of the Lord”
of Isaiah 40:3? This confusing consortium spawns corollary questions. Why
is there a switch in Mark’s citation between “I will send my [the Lord’s] mes-
senger before you” (Moses and people of Israel) in Exod 23:20, to the Malachi
the Gospel of Jesus Christ according to Mark: From the Jordan River to the Open Tomb (Maitland,
FL: Xulon Press, 2004), 1–6.
4 E. g., Marxsen argues that Mark’s own combining of the three “messenger texts” in
Mark 1:2–3 accents his new configuration of the whole story of Jesus, that the “good news”
has as its origin and goal in OT prophecies that are fulfilled definitively by the Baptist’s role in
1:4–8. As the “voice” of Isa 40, John “proclaims” a baptism that can only culminate in Jesus’s
baptism by the Spirit through John’s “preparatory” baptism of repentance: “Man muss nun
nur darauf achten, dass sowohl die Prophetie als auch der Vorläufer bereits dazu gehören –
nämlich zum Evangelium” (Der Evangelist Markus, 25); cf. Becker, Das Markus-Evangelium,
109: “vorausgedeutete[s] Wirken des Täufers.”
5 Esp. in English see Marcus’s Way of the Lord: Mark 1:2–3 sounds the main Christological
contours of the rest of Mark; cf. already Marxsen, Der Evangelist Markus, 17–41; Robinson,
Problem of History, 72: “When vv. 2–3 offer a prophecy, and v. 15 speaks of the ‘time’ having
been ‘fulfilled,’ are we not led by Mark to look in the intervening narrative (vv. 4–13) for an
event of fulfillment?”; Yarbro Collins, Beginning of the Gospel, 36–37: “It is the good news that
God has acted and is acting in history to fulfill the promises of Scripture and to inaugurate
the new age”; Becker, Das Markus-Evangelium, 106–11: Mark 1:1–3 functions as Mark’s own
book title with both the historical, chronological beginning of the actions of the “gospel of Jesus
Christ” and the overarching relation between John the Baptist and Jesus in developing the
theme of fulfillment (109).
Mark’s Mysterious ‘Beginning’ (1:1–3) 245
text, “who will prepare your way” (Jesus’s way?) instead of the “my way” (Lord
God’s) as in the received text of Mal 3:1 (ἰδοὺ ἐγὼ ἐξαποστέλλω τὸν ἄγγελόν
μου, καὶ ἐπιβλέψεται ὁδὸν πρὸ προσώπου μου),6 where God is speaking about
a messenger preparing the way for God’s own, “my coming” to the Temple (cf.
Mark 1:2b–c)? More than that, how many “messengers” are indicated overall? Is
there one each in Exodus and Malachi and a “voice” in Isaiah 40 who commands
other messengers “to prepare the way of the Lord” (1:3b)? Furthermore, what
do Exodus, Malachi, and Isaiah have to do with Jesus’s “way,” especially from
Mark 8:30 on (e. g., ὁδός, 10:17, 32, 52), where Jesus links his own suffering to
the disciples’ acclamation that he is “the Messiah,” but then – from that point
forward – the disciples appear to do everything but “prepare the way” for Jesus’s
arrival in Jerusalem (“hard-hearted,” 8:14–21; “incompetent,” 9:28–29; “afraid,”
9:30–32; “hindering” the entering of the Kingdom, 10:13–16), etc.?
So we are left wondering whether Mark’s quoting Scripture at the outset pro-
vides an organic, hermeneutically pitched entrance into the continuity of Mark’s
story of the eschatological Reign of God. Or, is it rather that the “messenger”
passages of the Scriptures simply herald both John the Baptizer and Jesus as
trailblazers who will appear in 1:4–8 and 1:9–13 respectively to enact the first
scenes of the narrative’s “beginning” (ἀρχή)? Are these scriptural texts appro-
priate embellishment – a form of “narrative elaboration” (ἐξεργασία) – to set the
general eschatological tone for the audience? Or do they function as sign posts to
specific scriptural promises that structure the whole of Mark for Mark’s audience
such that the callings of the Baptizer and particularly of Jesus, the Christ, Son
of God, illuminate how John and Jesus are the designated “forerunners” of the
eschatological fulfillment of the “Reign of God” (1:1b → 1:7–8 → 1:14–15)?
A. The ‘Beginning’ (ἀρχή) (Mark 1:1–3):

The Mysterious Disclosure of Mark’s ‘Messianic Secret’
My thesis will attempt to demonstrate that “the beginning of the gospel” (ἀρχὴ
τοῦ εὐαγγελίου, Mark 1:1a) refers not to the beginning or incipit of the text; nor
to the opening scenes in 1:4–8, 9–13 (John the Baptizer and Jesus’s baptism and
temptation, respectively); nor to the whole text of Mark as the inaugural era of
the “gospel” that fills all time full in the end time;7 nor to the discourse or genre
of Mark now associated with εὐαγγέλιον. Rather, “the beginning of the gospel”
(ἀρχὴ τοῦ εὐαγγελίου) formulates an epitome of “Moses and the prophets”
6 MT: “Look, I am sending my messenger, and he will prepare the way before me … says the
Lord of Hosts”; LXX: “Look, I am sending out my messenger, and he will look out for me along
the way … says the Lord Almighty” (Mal 3:1, my trans.).
7 Cf. Mark 1:15: πεπλήρωται ὁ καιρὸς καὶ ἤγγικεν ἡ βασιλεία τοῦ θεοῦ.
through the register of the plot of Second Isaiah that Mark’s “gospel” will unfold
in Jesus of Nazareth. More particularly, the referent of Mark’s ἀρχή is not to
any events of John or Jesus per se but rather to ancient scriptural texts that fore-
shadow a coming of God to launch God’s final reign through the sending of the
“voice” (John the Baptizer) and the “Messiah, Son of God” (Jesus of Nazareth)
(1:1–3).
Mark’s ἀρχή is, in fact, reflecting a commonplace of Hellenistic narrative
rhetoric in which a longer series of events, configured through a particular
narrative sequence, are based upon and coordinated with a foundation event
or period of time which determines much of the setting, circumstances, and out-
comes for the new narrative enterprise. This seminal period or set of occurrences
is consistently termed “the beginning” (ἀρχή). Mark’s three citations, pressed
through the crucible of suffering in the turbulent, plotted prophecies of Deutero-
Isaiah’s hope for return from exile, telescope the constituent plot of characters
and events that build upon a story, whose main lines of development had already
been set in motion many years before, and whose outcomes for the promises of
the reign of God, Mark now announces as “at hand” (1:15).
1. As is well known, already by the 1st c. BCE, rhetoric had a well-established
history as an all-encompassing heuristic for compositional performance, in-
cluding both speaking and writing.8 Precisely because the earliest traces of Greek
oral literature cannot possibly be explained apart from their preoccupation with
‘audience impact,’ suasive forms of expression for many types of communication
had been evolving centuries before Aristotle. To be sure, Aristotle’s distinction
between “the causal” basis of poetic mimēsis and the “accidental” or ‘casual’ nature
of history writing (historia) (Poet. 9, 1451a36–b32) was not generally embraced;
hence the poet’s inspired poiēsis would not become, along with philosophy, a
preserve for illuminating ‘universals,’ whereas historia should be restricted to
limited, inimitable ‘particulars.’ Rather, in line with Aristotle’s wider notion of
an author’s overall purpose or telos for impacting an audience, the selection of a
written poiēsis appropriate to that impact had become the basis for the unity of a
text rather than Aristotle’s more rarefied notion of the ‘one action’ (μία πρᾶξις)
of the poets.9 It is not long after Aristotle, in fact, that writers of history like
Polybius (ca. 202–120 BCE), Diodorus Siculus (fl. Julian period), or Dionysius
of Halicarnassus (fl. Augustan period) – each thoroughly steeped in the culture
8 See esp. R. L. Enos, Greek Rhetoric before Aristotle, rev. ed. (Anderson, SC: Parlor Press,
2012), esp. 93–142.
9 See, e. g., D. W. Lucas, Aristotle, Poetics: Introduction, Commentary and Appendixes (Ox-
ford: Clarendon, 1968), 100: “The poet takes the story, μῦθος, in the non-technical sense … and
reorganizes it in such a way as to bring the parts into a more logical significant relation to one
another. The story is a preliminary selection from the stream of events; in the plot the story is
organized”; S. Halliwell, The Poetics of Aristotle: Translation and Commentary (Chapel Hill,
NC: University of North Carolina Press, 1987), 96: “the poet-dramatist’s thinking is realized in,
but also effaced by, the design of the plot’s structure of action.”
of suasive speech – will characterize their own narrative history writings as

persuasive diēgētic poiēsis with a plotted “continuity” through multiple volumes
of a “whole” that moves to the authorially-intended telos.10
2. One of the essential ‘methods of development’ (ἐξεργασία)11 for a diēgētic
whole was a “seminal point or period,” ἡ ἀρχή, for the entire narrative, whether
for shorter narratives or longer multi-volume works. This ἀρχή was crucial in
determining the character of the whole (σύνταξις), ‘the purpose’ (τὸ τέλος), and
even the scope of the ‘plotted continuity’ (τὸ συνεχές).
The historian Polybius of Megalopolis (2nd c. BCE) explains the rationale for
this kind of starting point, namely, the necessity of tracing ‘cause and effect’ for
the audience (5.32.1–5):
I will therefore on the present occasion [i. e., to make the arrangement perfectly clear]
also go back a little and try in treating of the reigns of Antiochus and Ptolemy to take
some generally recognized and accepted starting-points (ἀρχαί) for my narrative: the
most necessary thing to provide for. For the ancients, saying that the beginning (ἡ ἀρχή)
is half the whole, advised that in all matters the greatest care should be taken to compose
a good beginning (ποιεῖσθαι … ὑπὲρ τοῦ καλῶς ἄρξασθαι). And although this dictum
is thought to be exaggerated, in my own opinion it falls short of the truth. One may
indeed confidently affirm that the beginning (ἡ ἀρχή) is not merely half of the whole,
but reaches as far as the end (πρὸς τὸ τέλος διατείνειν). For how is it possible to begin a
thing well (ἄρξασθαί τινος καλῶς) without having present in one’s mind the completion
(ἡ συντέλεια) of one’s project, and without knowing its scope, its relation to other things,
and the object for which one undertakes it? And again how is it possible to sum up events
(συνκεφαλαιώσθασθαι) properly without carrying them along together with their begin-
ning (συναναφέροντα τὴν ἀρχὴν), and understanding from where, how, and why the final
situation of the events was brought about? So we should think that beginnings (αἱ ἀρχαί)
not only reach half way, but reach to the end (τὸ τέλος), and both writers [speakers] and
readers [hearers] of a general history should pay the greatest attention to them. And this
I shall endeavor to do.12
Already in his first of forty volumes, Polybius had declared the “starting point” (ἡ
ἀρχή) of the entire narrative which, he says, serves as the interpretive key for un-
10 E. g., Dionysius of Halicarnassus, Pomp. 3; for Polybius’s and Diodorus’s ‘economy’ of

poiēsis, see below.
11 For the role of τάξις in a more theoretically developed system of ‘arrangement’
(οἰκονομία) in the younger contemporary Dionysius of Halicarnassus, which includes ‘di-
vision’/ ‘partitioning’ (διαίρεσις), ‘order’/ ‘sequence’ (τάξις), and ‘method or effectiveness of
development’ (ἐξεργασία), see R. S. Reid, “‘Neither Oratory nor Dialogue’: Dionysius of Hali-
carnassus and the Genre of Plato’s Apology,” Rhetoric Society Quarterly 27 (1997): 63–90, esp.
67–83; D. P. Moessner, “Dionysius’ Narrative ‘Arrangement’ (οἰκονομία) as the Hermeneutical
Key to Luke’s Re-vision of the ‘Many,’” in Paul, Luke and the Graeco-Roman World: Essays
in Honour of Alexander J. M. Wedderburn, ed. A. Christophersen, C. Claussen, J. Frey, and
B. Longenecker, JSNTSup 217 (Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 2002), 149–64, esp. 151–53.
12 Text and trans. (modified) W. R. Paton, Polybius: The Histories, vol. 3: Books 5–8, rev.
F. W. Walbank and C. Habicht, LCL 138 (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2011),
86–87, emphasis added.
locking his “interlocking assortment” and following the “continuous character of

the narrative” that will “ravel” toward its goal (τέλος) (1.5.1–5):
I shall adopt as the beginning point (ἡ ἀρχή) of this book the first occasion on which the
Romans crossed the sea from Italy …. The beginning point must be a period generally
accepted and recognized, and one self-evident from the events themselves (καὶ τοῖς
πράγμασι δυναμένην αὐτὴν ἐξ αὑτῆς θεωρεῖσθαι), even if this means that I go back a little
in time and recall by way of summary those events which happened between the earlier
point and the beginning. For if the audience is ignorant or indeed in any doubt as to what
is the set of events from which the work opens (τῆς γὰρ ἀρχῆς ἀγνοουμένης), it is impos-
sible that what follows should find acceptance or credibility (οὐδὲ τῶν ἑξῆς οὐδὲν οἷόν
τε παραδοχῆς ἀξιωθῆναι καὶ πίστεως); but once we produce agreement on this [starting]
point, then the whole of the continuous message of the narrative (πᾶς ὁ συνεχὴς λόγος) will
be favorably received by those who will hear it (παρὰ τοῖς ἀκούουσιν).13
Approximately a century later, the Greek historian, Diodorus Siculus,14 also

author of a forty-volume “universal history,”15 applies the same criterion of a
proper “beginning” point of a larger history narrative to a proper “beginning
point” for each separate volume. Only with the ἀρχή as an anchor to sustain the
continuity of the new volume’s developing events can the auditor make sense of
the author’s intended valuation of those more limited events for the narrative’s
more sweeping whole. As a corollary, therefore, an ἀρχή for each volume is an
indispensable semaphore for the state of events at this new juncture by which
all subsequent causes and effects are to be gauged and compared and integrated
with the movement of the whole work. Only through this linking of ἀρχαί can
13 Text W. R. Paton, Polybius: The Histories, vol. 1: Books 1–2, rev. F. W. Walbank and
C. Habicht, LCL 128 (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2010), 15, trans. and em-
phasis mine.
14 For a more comprehensive and detailed treatment of Hellenistic narrative rhetoric, see,
e. g., D. P. Moessner, “‘The Living and Enduring Voice’: Papias as Guarantor of Early Apostolic
Plotting of Incipient Synoptic Traditions,” EC 9 (2018): 484–519, esp. 491–500, where Polybius,
Aelius Theon of Alexandria, and Lucian of Samosata are also included in the analysis of τάξις
and οἰκονομία.
15 Polybius refers to his own forty volumes as “universal history” (κοινὴ ἱστορία; ἡ κατ’
ὅλου) (e. g., 1.4.2; 3.23.3; 5.31.3; 7.7.6; etc.), and in book 12 criticizes Ephorus, Theopompus,
Kallisthenes, and Timaeus for insufficient understanding of the impact of events in one nation
upon those of all the others, esp. in the events contemporary with their own writing – even
though they purport to trace events from the beginnings of recorded civilization to their own
day. In essence, then, Polybius is re-defining their conception of “universal history” to the status
of “monographs” of limited scope, whereas his own work, though concentrating on one period
of history, is the true universal history since it weaves together the events that for the first time
were truly “common” to the peoples of the whole (known) world. See especially, A. C. Scafuro,
“Universal History and the Genres of Greek Historiography” (PhD diss., Yale University, 1983),
102–115, who contends that, “Rather than invent a new name – one that represented the
fact that its universality was ‘horizontal’ (synchronic) rather than ‘vertical’ (diachronic) – he
[Polybius] kept the old names of koinē historia and hē katholou.” Diodorus, clearly influenced
by Polybius, endeavors to combine both aspects of diachronic and synchronic trajectories in
tracing near-contemporary events of several nations back to their pre-historical origins.
a “complete” (αὐτοτελεῖς) longer narrative be achieved, which, as Diodorus

argues, exhibits a “continuity” (τὸ τῆς διηγήσεως συνεχές) from ‘a beginning to
its plotted end’ (16.1.2):
For incomplete accounts of actions (ἡμιτελεῖς πράξεις) in which the culminating events
exhibit no continuity with the beginning events (οὐκ ἔχουσαι συνεχὲς ταῖς ἀρχαῖς τὸ
πέρας) interrupt the interest even of avid readers (μεσολαβοῦσι τὴν ἐπιθυμίαν τῶν
φιλαναγνωστούντων), whereas those accounts which do exhibit the continuity of the
narrative (τὸ τῆς διηγήσεως συνεχές) up to the very conclusion of the events (μέχρι τῆς
τελευτῆς) produce a narrative account which is well-roundedly complete (ἀπηρτισμένην
τῆν τῶν πράξεων ἔχουσιν ἀπαγγελίαν).16
Such balance within a manageable, mnemonic plotting not only recalls Poly-
bius’s calls to proper ‘arrangement’ of the whole, but also re-sounds Aristotle’s
necessary well-proportioned plots which alone can produce the intended effects
upon the audience.17
Toward the end of the Republic and beginning of the Principate, Dionysius of
Halicarnassus, literary critic as well as historian, dares to challenge the “arrange-
ment” and “compositional” talents of the already ‘classic’ historian, Thucydides
(Thuc. 10, 12):
10 Some critics also find fault with the sequence (τάξις) of his narrative, complaining that
he neither chose the right beginning (ἀρχή) for it nor the proper ending (τέλος). They say
that by no means the least important aspect of good arrangement (οἰκονομίας ἀγαθής)
is that a work should have as its beginning (ἀρχή) the point where nothing necessarily
be perceived as preceding it, and that the account should end (τελέω) where it appears
that nothing further need follow. … Indeed, he does not begin his narrative (τὴν ἀρχὴν
πεποίηται τῆς διηγήσεως) from the true cause, the one which he himself believes, but
from that other point ….
12 This improper beginning point, then, would have been sufficient in itself to prove
that his own narrative is not arranged (ᾠκονομῆσθαι τὴν διήγησιν) in the most competent
way by him, by which I mean that it does not begin at the natural starting point (τὴν κατὰ
φύσιν ἔχειν ἀρχήν). Added also to this is the observation that his history does not come to
a head at the proper point of completion (ἔδει κεφάλαια τετελευτηκέναι τὴν διήγησιν).
For although the war lasted twenty-seven years and he lived the whole time right up to its
conclusion (τῆς καταλύσεως), he carried his history down only to the twenty-second year
by extending the eighth book through the Battle of Cynossema, even though he says in the
prooimion that he intends to cover all (πάντα) the events which taken together made up
the war (κατὰ τόνδε τὸν πόλεμον).18
16 Text C. L. Sherman, Diodorus Siculus: Library of History, vol. 7: Books 15.20–16.65, LCL
389 (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1952), 232, trans. and emphasis mine.
17 See, e. g., Poet. 8, 1451a32–34: “the various components of the events should be so struc-
tured that if any is displaced or removed, the sense of the whole is disturbed and dislocated …,”
trans. mine.
18 Text S. Usher, Dionysius of Halicarnassus: Critical Essays, vol. 1: Ancient Orators, LCL
465 (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1974), 484, 486, 492, trans. and emphasis
mine. Usher in his translation appears to pass over entirely the more precise meaning of the
To sum up, in Hellenistic narrative composition of multiple events, a ‘beginning

point,’ or ἀρχή, was indispensable in determining for the audience the character
(αὐτοτελεῖς σύνταξις) and the purpose (τέλος), as well as the ‘scope’ of ‘the
plotted continuity’ (τὸ συνεχές) of the diēgētic performance. Emplotment with-
out proper causal connections that stem from a primary ἀρχή is epistemologically
impotent in effecting the author’s intended impact for the audience.
B. The Messenger, the Voice, and the Servant
The present task does not allow a detailing of the rationale and procedure for
transforming three separate texts into one in early Judaism and Jewish Chris-
tianity.19 Nevertheless, we can mention some striking philological and concep-
tual constants among Exod 23:20, Mal 3:1, and Isa 40:3.
1. Exod 23:20
The identity of “my messenger” (ἄγγελός μου) who goes before the people from
Sinai to secure their entry into the land as a kind of ‘glorified’ ‘security guard’
remains still a “mystery.” Who is this malak/ἄγγελος (angel?) who represents
God’s own presence to pardon sin, annihilate enemies, and even transform an
obedience to the messenger’s ‘voice’ into an abundance of possessions and peace
(Exod 23:21–23)? Given Israel’s past “advances” in idolatry and “murmuring”
during their wilderness trek, “this messenger” appears to be God’s own “right
hand” assistant in a limited or accommodating form to make God’s own pres-
ence more manifest, palpable, fearful.
2. Mal 3:1
Mal 3:1 LXX translates the HB’s Malâch-i literally as “my [the Lord’s] messenger”
(ἄγγελός μου). The “Lord” will send this “my messenger” to “prepare the way
Greek phrase κατὰ τόνδε τὸν πόλεμον: “having expressed his intention in his introduction
to include all the events of the war.” Though Usher does point out in a note (493 n. 1) that
Thucydides refers to the larger scope of all the events earlier in War 5.26, yet he does not follow
the emphasis of both Thucydides and the later Dionysius in their conviction that an incomplete
‘whole,’ i. e., when not ‘all of the events are taken together,’ is a faulty syntaxis for audience
comprehension and approbation.
19 See, e. g., J. D. H. Norton, “Composite Quotations in the Damascus Document,” in
Composite Citations in Antiquity, vol. 1: Jewish, Graeco-Roman, and Early Christian Uses, ed.
S. A. Adams and S. M. Ehorn, LNTS 525 (London: Bloomsbury T&T Clark, 2016), 92–118; S. A.
Adams and S. M. Ehorn, “Composite Citations in the Septuagint Apocrypha,” ibid., 119–39;
B. Chilton and D. Bock, eds., A Comparative Handbook to the Gospel of Mark: Comparisons
with Pseudepigrapha, the Qumran Scrolls, and Rabbinic Literature (Leiden: Brill, 2010), 63–68,
and esp. 529–32 on the use of gezera shawa in Pesiq. Rab. 4.2: “the appearance of the verb ‘send’
in Exodus 3:10 (‘I will send you to Pharaoh’) and Malachi 3:23 (‘I will send you Elijah’) legiti-
mates comparison between these two great prophets” (529).
before me, and the Lord whom you seek will come suddenly to his Temple” to
execute judgment against the enemies of Torah (cf. 3:5–7). Mark, however, cites
“to prepare the way before you” (Mark 1:2b); who is this “you”? At the end of this
same verse in Mal 3:1, this “my messenger” is evidently identified toward the end
of the verse (3:1e) as “indeed the messenger of the covenant” (καὶ ὁ ἄγγελος τῆς
διαθήκης) “whom you [Israel] desire/take delight in (θέλετε, 3:1c) and look, he
is coming (καὶ … ἰδοὺ ἔρχεται), says the Lord Almighty” (3:1–2).
But at the conclusion of chapter 3 (HB and LXX), “my messenger” now appears
to be denominated as “Elijah the Tishbite” who will cause many of the families
(the LXX adds, “and neighbors,” 3:23b) of Israel to be reconciled with each other
under the aegis of Torah adherence. Three additional links between Elijah in
Mal 3:22 and “my messenger” of 3:1 make this identification all but certain:
a. “My messenger” will “appear” with great force and fire “to purify the sons
of Levi” until the priests offer unadulterated sacrifices as God had intended from
“the days of old” (3:4b). Once “righteous” sacrifices are re-established, “Then
I [the Lord of Mal 3:1] will come near for judgment” (3:5a). In 3:22 Elijah is sent
“before the great and awesome day of the Lord comes … lest I [the Lord] come
and utterly destroy the earth” (3:23).
b. Elijah’s coming is justified by the wicked in Israel who persist in despising
God’s Torah and thus are no different than all of their “ancestors who have
always shunned and never kept the commandments” (Mal 3:7). They will be
“burned up like stubble” by an “oven of judgement” “to leave them neither root
nor branch” (3:19). But more than that, the repentant, “righteous” group within
Israel that Elijah’s preaching secures (3:17–18), becomes the very agent through
whom the Lord at his own coming will enact final judgment. These “righteous
ones” will be called “my special possession on the day when I act, and I will spare
them as parents spare their children who serve them” (3:17). Moreover, they will
“tread down the wicked like ashes under their feet on the day when I act, says
the Lord of hosts” (3:20–21). Indeed, Elijah is precisely the one who is to restore
parents and children to each other.
c. The HB introduces Elijah’s coming with the admonition, “Remember the
law of Moses, my servant, the teaching [LXX lacks ‘teaching’], the statutes and
ordinances that I commanded him at Horeb to all of Israel” (Mal 3:22), whereas
the LXX closes Elijah’s appearance and the whole book of “my messenger” with
“Moses, my servant (τοῦ δούλου μου), to whom I commanded for all Israel the
commandments and the ordinances” (3:24 = ET 4:4). Curiously, Exod 23:20
is sandwiched between the initial giving of the law by “the Lord” to Moses
(Exod 20:1–23:19) and Moses and the seventy elders ascending Horeb to seal
the covenant (ch. 24) before the “messenger” leads them out from the Sinai/
Horeb mountain. In sum, both “Moses,” in Exodus and Malachi,20 and “the pro-
20 Unlike Elijah in the HB/LXX (e. g., Mal 3:23/ET 4:5), Moses is not a candidate to re-
phets,” in Malachi, “my messenger,” dovetail in their insistence that a mysterious

“messenger” must go to prepare the way before that “great and awesome day of
the Lord comes” (3:22b).
3. Isa 40:3
Isaiah 40 presents not only some of the same difficulties in identifying various
“messengers,” as in Malachi, but also in assigning specific “voices” to discrete
messengers. Is the “voice” of Isa 40:3 (cf. Mark 1:3) the voice of God who speaks
words of consolation in 40:1? The LXX of 40:3 translates the Hebrew bmidbar (“in
the wilderness”) with a substantival participle suggesting that “the voice” belongs
to “one who is in the wilderness, as the one who cries out (φωνὴ βοῶντος),” which
Mark cites, rather than a “voice” from Heaven uttering commands, as the HB could
indicate. A “voice” also cries out in 40:6 with the message: “Cry out!” to which
an “I” responds, “What shall I cry?” The message of the frailty and mortality of
human beings that follows blends into the command to “a proclaimer or herald of
good news” (ὁ εὐαγγελιζόμενος) to announce, “Look, here is your God!” (40:9d)
or “the Lord is coming with strength … with his reward together with him and his
recompense ahead of him, like a shepherd gathering his sheep” (40:10–11). The
“I” of 40:6 is most likely, then, the prophet himself of Isaiah 40–55 who brings
the consolation and the recompense of forgiveness repeatedly to a weary Israel in
exile, and whose “I” “voice” at times can, unsurprisingly, blend indiscriminately
with the “voice of God,” as already in 40:8, where the “word of our God will stand
forever” distinguishes the prophet from that “word.”
If Isaiah 40 features the calling of a prophet (the “I” of 40:6), the identity of
the “voice in the wilderness” remains enigmatic, except with the probability that
this “voice” is the one that is to declare to all Israel (“to Sion,” “to Jerusalem,”
40:9) that God is coming with unsurpassed power. “The Lord” is indeed coming
with an entourage that will manifest to Israel and all the nations, that this God
who comes anew rules the world (40:10–11).
appear on earth redivivus or essentially in a recognizable human form that he had before his
death. Yet “a prophet like Moses” is already given currency in Deuteronomy and the Deuterono-
mistic history (Deut 18:15–19; 34:9–12; Josh 1:1–11, 16–18, et al.) and Luke especially picks up
on this particular prophecy in describing, in part, the significance of Jesus (e. g., Luke 9:18–19;
Acts 3:22–23; 7:37). The transfiguration scene in each of the Synoptics breaks any pre-
conception of Moses’s role at the “time of the end” by his “appearing” with Elijah, as though
the greatest of all the prophets (Deut 34:10–12), like Elijah, had never died and decayed, was
translated up, and could be translated back to earth. Some time toward the end of the 1st c.
BCE up to the middle of the 1st c. CE, a book describing Moses’s last words or testament to
Joshua (repristinating the end of Deuteronomy) was composed. Origen (Princ. 3.2.1) refers to
an Ascension of Moses, while the Stichometry of Nicephorus (ca. 758–829 CE) lists a Testament
of Moses immediately before an Assumption of Moses. The paucity of the fragmentary evidence
for both “books” does not permit a clear delineation of either or whether a “taking up” of Moses
(à la Elijah) is in fact portrayed in the putative book of that name.
C. The Mysterious ‘Secret’ Servant of Isaiah 40–55
In Isaiah 41–55 the mystery of the “voice” continues when a new character

enters the scene, “the servant”: δοῦλος (5 × – 45:14 [pl.]; 48:20; 49:3, 5, 7 [pl.]);
παῖς (13 × – 41:8, 9; 42:1, 19 [pl.]; 43:10; 44:1, 2, 21, 26; 45:4; 49:6; 50:10; 52:13)
(“the servant” does not occur in only 5 of 16 chapters: 46, 47, 51, 54, 55). When
the contexts of the 18 occurrences are taken into account, the “servant” refers to:
(1) all of Israel, the elect people of the nation Israel; (2) a smaller group within
Israel who nevertheless represent the whole people; (3) the personification of
Israel in a quintessential Israelite with the actions and consequences normally
associated with an individual person, while simultaneously representing the
whole nation as well as an indispensable representative of the smaller group
within Israel.21
But how can Israel be called a “slave” or “servant” when the whole emphasis
of the opening consolation and new calling is to announce Israel’s liberation
from exile, when the overture of Isaiah 40 bursts with the triumphant release of
the people from their past transgressions and freedom from their un-mitigating
disobedience, as well as their enslavement to foreign oppressors? What kind of
salvation issues in the calling to be a slave?
In Isaiah 41 the first instance of either δοῦλος or παῖς occurs among the 18 in-
stances where the word denotes some aspect of the “servant’s calling” as depicted
in greater detail in Isaiah 42. Only if the four “poems” are isolated from the rest of
Isaiah 40–55 is it accurate to say that the four passages “stick out” like an erratic
block in Deutero-Isaiah.22 Otherwise, the “servant” – whether παῖς or δοῦλος,
Israel as a whole or a smaller group, or characteristics and effects of one among
the parts and whole who personifies God’s consummative reign in the Kingdom
of God – this servant enacts one of the major roles of this entire section.
The enigmatic “first” of four poems, Isa 42:1–7, illustrates the nuanced yet
oblique referents of God’s calling of a “servant”: (1) “Jacob”/“Israel” is both
“chosen” and “welcomed” (προσδέχομαι) as God’s παῖς, and will receive special
succor from “the Lord God” (cf. 42:5). Through the servant’s task, the Gentile
nations will receive the judgment of justice empowered by God’s spirit resident
“upon” the servant (ἔδωκα τὸ πνεῦμά μου ἐπ’ αὐτόν). Yet ironically, this servant
is a rather quiet, gentle soul, whose manner of communicating is neither in-
trusive nor obtrusive, is of low social status, and unimpressive in public. Yet, for
all of that, he will encounter disproportionate opposition; indeed, he will have
to persevere lest he be utterly extinguished in shining the light of justice upon
21 While παῖς occurs more frequently, it may overlap semantically in both sense and referent
with δοῦλος.
22 B. Duhm (1847–1928) is credited with first singling out the four “servant songs/poems”
as written by a later author; see esp. his Das Buch Jesaia, 5th ed., Göttinger Handkommentar
zum Alten Testament (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1968), esp. 311–406.
the nations (42:1–4). (2) The Lord God embraces the servant, “taking him by
the hand” as God’s special ambassador to the nations, so that “captives might be
released from bondage,” and “as a covenant” of and for the people of Israel, the
servant “might shine the light of salvation upon the Gentiles” (ἔδωκά σε [“my
servant”] εἰς διαθήκην γένους, εἰς φῶς ἐθνῶν, 42:6–7).
The first reports about the servant’s sending seem positive: God will “pour
out his Spirit upon” the servant’s descendants as upon him, for the simple
reason that God chose “Israel” as his “beloved,” “Jacob,” as “my servant” (παῖς
μου Ιακωβ καὶ ὁ ἠγαπημένος Ισραηλ, Isa 44:1–3). Likewise the blessings of the
harvest and bounties of nature shall serve Israel as well as vouchsafe God’s care
for the nations, since the God who chose Israel is the creator of all. What is most
striking is that the servant’s sending is linked specifically to “confirming” that the
prophecies of the Lord’s “messengers” (ἄγγελοι) have become true (44:26) – a
connection echoed perhaps by Mark with his opening “messengers” (ἄγγελοι)
“in the wilderness”?23
But in the “second” servant profile, Isa 49:1–6 (7), the servant offers a first-
person update, a résumé of the state of his sending; the situation has changed
dramatically. (1) To be sure, the servant draws attention to his chosen status be-
fore God as called and named already in his mother’s womb (49:1); (2) God had
formed his mouth to be like a sharp sword, a select, piercing arrow. Yet, for all
of that, the Lord had “concealed him in the shadow of God’s hand” and “hidden
him away in his (God’s) quiver” (49:2), while again assuring him that because
God had chosen Israel as his servant, God (“I”) will be glorified (δοξασθήσομαι)
in him (ἐν σοί) (49:3).
In Isa 49:4–6 the servant reacts to what seems to be a shameful attempt to
‘undo’ his calling. He has been harassed throughout his sending, even though
laboring strenuously, but all of that was for naught; he had exhausted every ounce
of his strength, all for utter futility, for nothing at all. So the Lord will have to be
the judge, the “servant’s” labor will be set before God’s searching scrutiny (49:4).
In this despair comes a new word of the Lord. This abject failure is actually
all a part of the calling. Somehow, precisely through this rejection, God will
“exalt/magnify/glorify” his servant Israel as the servant succeeds in “gathering
and restoring the tribes of Jacob, the diaspora of Israel.” But more than that, as a
“covenant for Israel” the servant will become the “light of the Gentile nations” by
extending “salvation” (σωτηρία/yeshuah) to the far reaches of the earth. The LXX
again is different from the MT in a most suggestive way: Instead of “my [God’s]
salvation” (yeshuati), the servant himself will in some fashion be/become the
salvation that reaches to the end of the earth (τοῦ εἶναί σε εἰς σωτηρίαν, 49:6).
This servant, evidently snubbed and degraded by all – by both Israel and the
23 Isa 44:26, καὶ ἱστῶν ῥήματα παιδὸς αὐτοῦ καὶ τὴν βουλὴν τῶν ἀγγέλων αὐτοῦ
ἀληθεύων; cf. Mark 1:13b, καὶ οἱ ἄγγελοι διηκόνουν αὐτῷ (cf. Mark 1:4, ἐγένετο Ἰωάννης [ὁ]
βαπτίζων ἐν τῇ ἐρήμῳ).
nations – will himself become both the means and the agency through whom the
Lord’s salvation to Israel and the nations becomes effective for the whole world
(49:6). When v. 7 is added, the word of v. 6 is elaborated to mean that the nations
who abhor the servant, in solidarity with the whole people of Israel, will do an
‘about-face.’ Instead of turning away with disgust, “kings will gaze” in adulation,
“princes shall rise up to prostrate themselves” before the servant, for the sake of
the Lord whose “faithfulness” is manifest in choosing his servant (49:7).
But now the mystery of the servant seems to have thickened even more rather
than dissipated. Israel is still the servant, but who is the servant who restores
Israel and in so doing is praised by the rulers of the world? The answer seems to
follow in the next several passages.
The depiction of the violence shown the servant in Isa 50:4–11 is classic:
Though he comforts the weary of Israel, they requite him with beatings, “pluck
his beard,” and spit him in the face as they humiliate him (50:4–6). Yet the word
of confidence that the Lord will vindicate him follows again in the midst of
the servant’s despicable treatment. The One who will declare him just or right
(ὁ δικαιώσας) will defend the servant against every charge; the servant shall
not be shamed since all who do not heed the voice of this servant shall “wear
out” and “lie down in torment” (50:11). Curiously, the consequences of failing to
hearken to the voice of the servant sound very much the same for Israel as during
their exodus for those who refused to heed the voice of the Lord’s “messenger”
(ἄγγελος, Exod 23:20).
The characteristic violence that aligns most closely with individual human
trauma is augmented even more in the most well-known of the servant portraits
in Isa 52:13–53:12. What now becomes clear, as the servant’s calling has rav-
eled to an intolerable tension of physical and psychological abuse from fellow
Israelites, is that this suffering is not only permitted by God, but also becomes
the very means by and for which the sins of Israel as a whole, the smaller group
within Israel, and all of the peoples of the earth are removed and atoned. The
vicarious suffering associated with Israel’s priestly sacrificial system through a
“guilt offering,” or “sin offering,” or “scapegoat” expiation of transgressions24
against God’s will is now heaped upon the suffering servant. This human-
servant appears to be a willing victim, who, like a lamb led to slaughter, does
not resist. When charged with false violations against God, he remains silent
(twice – 53:7a, d). Yet the confession of a smaller group in 53:1–6 divulges, this
time from within Israel, another complete turn-around in comprehending this
servant. Instead of a defiant son of Israel who epitomizes the shame heaped upon
the whole people (cf. Deut 21:18–21), or rather than a nauseating slab of human
24 Isa 53:10: a sacrifice of expiation, or “guilt offering”/ʾāšām; 53:11b: a “removal” of sin or
“sin offering”; 53:12c: “scape goat” who “carries away the sin of many”; 53:12d: high priestly
“intercession” for transgressors. See, e. g., C. Westermann, Isaiah 40–66, trans. D. M. G. Stalker,
OTL (Philadelphia: Westminster, 1969), esp. 258–69.
‘flesh’ who disgraces God’s very honor, or instead of one who is despised by God
and utterly shunned by others because of his abominable life, this “servant” was
actually receiving the punishment due for their own law-lessness against their
maker. By their defacing of the servant’s humanity, God was actually delivering
them from their unspeakable mutilation of God’s justice (Isa 53:5–12).
The fate of this servant of Isaiah 40–55 is as mysterious as is his identity.
The Lord will somehow show this terminated life “light,” will exonerate him
from his unjust death, and grant him many offspring together with the spoils
of the mighty. But the specific identification of this servant remains a secret.
The building chain of “servant” appearances (δοῦλος/παῖς) from Isaiah 49 on is
virtually silent in any particulars regarding the growing opposition the servant
faces, except in the servant’s own account in 49:1–6. Even here the groups
within exiled Israel and non-Israelite nations that are to be the most militant in
opposing the servant are absent, except for the hint in 49:7 that foreign princes
and their courtiers will pose a serious obstacle to this one who seems to defy
all protocols for administering power. Nor is it clear just how the servant will
come back from death to inherit followers and be vindicated and honored as
God’s own anointed agent. The smaller “we” group who voice their confession
in 53:1–6 do not intimate any restoration of the servant from death; there is no
announcement from presumed later followers that the servant had risen from
the dead. Instead, the reader must assume that the prophetic frame of the whole
scenario of death and new life will become clearer once the story of the servant
is completed. Only the prophet of Isaiah 40–55 announces that light and life will
color the servant’s future (53:10–12).
To draw together the main observations: The prophet of Isaiah 40–55 weaves
together in a cause-effect progression the poetic prophecies of God’s new exodus
of Israel’s redemption led by a mysterious, secret, and suffering “servant” who is
heralded in advance by a “voice in the wilderness.”25 It is not wide from the mark
to label this whole section of Deutero-Isaiah, the plot of ‘the servant secret.’
D. The Dramatic Disclosure of the ‘Servant Secret’

of Isaiah in Mark’s ‘Messianic Secret’ …
“Just as It Stands Written in Isaiah the Prophet” (Mark 1:2a)
Our scope does not allow a detailed analysis of the larger plot and sub-plots
of Mark’s Gospel. We are not suggesting that the narrative landscapes of Mark
and Deutero-Isaiah have close parallels in the number and types of characters,
25 See esp. the almost imperceptible transition between Cyrus’s role in liberating Israel and
Israel’s call as “my servant” to enact the “Lord God’s” role as “Redeemer” in utterly crushing
and “threshing” all of Israel’s enemies (LXX Isa 41:1–7 → 41:8–16) and yet through the unusual
demeanor and strategies of “my servant” in establishing “justice” (41:25–29 → 42:1–6).
their points of view of the larger divine “will,” or similar geo-political or socio-
cultural exigencies. But if we consider plot motivation from intra-canonical and
intertextual cross-connections and echoes within a larger plotted arrangement –
discerned by early Jewish believers in Jesus as God’s special anointed Son from
their re-readings of their scriptures, or if during their first sketchings of a new
meta-narrative Jesus is re-imagined as a ‘suffering Messiah’ who culminates Is-
rael’s ‘redemption history’ – then certain correspondences might be expected to
emerge. Mark 1:15, for example, claims that Jesus regarded his “preaching of the
Gospel of God” as “filling all time to its fullness,” since the consummate Reign of
God was drawing near in his “coming” to be “baptized by John” (1:9–11, 14–15).
From this vantage point of incipient Christian, pre-canonical configurations, it
is hardly conceivable that there would not be some remarkable convergences,
allusions, and reenactments interpreted as fulfilling earlier scenarios and un-
finished plots. Indeed, if one of Mark’s major motivations is to show how Jesus’s
“gospel of God” (τὸ εὐαγγέλιον τοῦ θεοῦ, 1:15) does, in fact, bring past promises
and unanswered crises to their fruition through Israel’s elect role of facilitating
God’s Reign over the whole world, then there should be no surprise if significant
correspondences between Jesus in Mark and the servant in Deutero-Isaiah
would come to light.
1. The Threefold Fluidity of the Servant Sending in Isaiah 40–55

Finds a Similar Pattern in Mark
a. A prophet introduces a “voice” who “in the wilderness” heralds the coming
“way of the Lord” (Isa 40:3 LXX in Mark 1:3), and John the Baptizer immediately
appears on the scene “in the wilderness.” Moreover his baptizing “all of those
from the region of Judea and Jerusalem” and preaching an “about face”/“change
of mind” (μετάνοια) vis-à-vis a “stronger one” who “will baptize with the Holy
Spirit,” mirrors the repentance that Elijah evokes in Malachi 3 of returning Israel
to the obedience of Torah through mutual forgiveness and reconciliation among
Israelites under the penumbra of the Lord’s own coming as eschatological judge.
Very quickly Jesus of Nazareth “comes” to show his solidarity with all of Israel as
they “turn around” through the baptism that leads to forgiveness and a calling
for which Jesus himself is obedient and is baptized by John (Mark 1:9–11; cf.
1:4: John is “preaching a baptism of a change of mind that leads to the release
of sins” (Ἰωάννης [ὁ] βαπτίζων … κηρύσσων βάπτισμα μετανοίας εἰς ἄφεσιν
ἁμαρτιῶν)).
b. John’s baptizing of Jesus “immediately” (εὐθύς, 1:10) triggers an apocalyptic
vision of the “heavens split open,” and the descending Holy Spirit into Jesus,
accompanied by a voice from the opened heavens, “You are my son, my beloved
(σὺ εἶ ὁ υἱός μου ὁ ἀγαπητός), I take delight in you” (ἐν σοὶ εὐδόκησα, 1:11b).
Now Jesus’s calling, as joined in solidarity with all Israel, is elaborated by the
characteristic dimensions of an individual defined by a whole; Jesus is dis-

tinguished by the voice of God as “beloved” and the object of “special joy” or
“contentment.”
Now the conjunction of a παῖς (“son”/“servant”) upon whom God gives
(“my”) Spirit in Isa 42:1a, c, with “Israel” as God’s “elect” whom God embraces
as special (προσεδέξατο αὐτὸν ἡ ψυχή μου, 42:1b, d), and who is sent to bring
justice to the nations is not too distant in its conception from the call of Jesus
in Mark. This correspondence is heightened by what immediately follows in
both Mark and Isaiah 42. The descending Spirit immediately (εὐθύς) casts Jesus
out into the wilderness to be tested by the adversary, “the Satan,” accompanied
by untamed “wild beasts” (θηρία) which, likely symbolizing the hostile world
after the expulsion of humankind from the Garden, threaten God’s beloved.26
It appears that though endowed with the power of the Spirit as “my beloved
Son,” Jesus is still vulnerable, in need of “ministering” “messengers” (οἱ ἄγγελοι
διηκόνουν αὐτῷ, Mark 1:13b). Is this perhaps an allusion to the rather mild,
gentle “servant” who is promised God’s special aid (Isa 42:1–4) and who in
Isa 44:24–28 receives the affirmation of ἄγγελοι, as well as to the special “mes-
senger” (ὁ ἄγγελος) in Exod 23:20 who guards and strengthens Moses and
the exodus exiles? In Mark, the forty days of testing (Mark 1:12–13) which
follow “immediately” (εὐθύς) is a clear echo of Moses’s trials against the un-
relenting allure of idolatry, particularly in Moses’s role as separated from and
yet in total solidarity with the wilderness Israelites. Perhaps the most striking
illustration of this ‘unity in distinction’ occurs after the incident of the “molten
calf ” (LXX Exod 32:30–34), where Moses volunteers his life as a sacrifice for
26 In LXX Genesis 1–3, τὰ θηρία represent one of five “kinds” (τὰ γένη) of living beings that
God created to be with the first human-kind creature (e. g., Gen 1:24: ἐξαγαγέτω ἡ γῆ ψυχὴν
ζῶσαν κατὰ γένος, τετράποδα καὶ ἑρπετὰ καὶ θηρία τῆς γῆς κατὰ γένος); but because they were
not sufficiently “like Adam,” God makes the second human, the female, to become the more
appropriate presence or companionship for the Adam who had become “lonely.” In Gen 3:15
“the serpent” (of the “reptiles”) is cursed by God “more than all the cattle (quadrupeds) and
all the wild beasts (τὰ θηρία) that are upon the earth” (viz., slithering on the earth and eating
earth for food). All creation turns against itself as illustrated most starkly by the corruption of
the human-kind flesh when Cain slaughters his human-flesh kind, Abel, Gen 4:8–12). After the
flood that kills “all flesh,” including human-flesh, the “wild beasts” (τὰ θηρία) become known as
an ever-present danger to human flesh for which God will “require their blood,” due especially
to their unquenchable thirst for human blood (Gen 9:4–5a). Gen 9:4–6, which gives Noah and
kin power over all the “kinds” of flesh, regards the killing of humans (and drinking their blood)
by “wild beasts” as less grave than a human-kind killing another human. The human not only
violates the “life blood” of that other human, but also desecrates God’s own “image” (ὅτι ἐν
εἰκόνι θεοῦ ἐποίησα [God] τὸν ἄνθρωπον: “For in the image of God, I [God] made the human-
kind,” LXX Gen 9:6b). In the Joseph cycle (Genesis 37–47), “wild beasts” will surely kill Joseph
who was abandoned in the wilderness; cf. 37:20, 32–33: Joseph’s brothers: ἀποκτείνωμεν αὐτὸν
καὶ ῥίψωμεν αὐτὸν εἰς ἕνα τῶν λάκκων καὶ ἐροῦμεν Θηρίον πονηρὸν κατέφαγεν αὐτόν
“Come, let us kill him … and we will say that a wild beast has devoured him.” We will see below
that when apocalyptic literature is developed, the “wild beasts” become one of the main “animal
symbols” of eschatological evil against God’s Kingdom (e. g., Daniel 7: 13 instances of θηρίον).
Israel’s atonement, but “the Lord” instead tells Moses that “my messenger” will
lead you on together with those who did not sin in the worship of the “molten
calf ”: Exod 32:34: ἰδοὺ ὁ ἄγγελός μου προπορεύεται πρὸ προσώπου σου; cf.
Exod 33:2a; 23:20!).27 Moses’s solidarity is now limited to a much smaller group
within Israel, while the main perpetrators of the evil “calf ” are stricken with a
plague (Exod 32:35).
c. Accordingly, Mark’s ἀρχή of “the good news concerning Jesus the Christ,
Son of God” (1:1), also anticipates Jesus’s solidarity with a smaller group from
within Israel, who together carry out the “servant” calling. Mark has Jesus in
direct speech launch his “gospel” once the voice in the wilderness is delivered
over to arrest (1:14a → 1:15); Jesus can thus justify his calling of his own disciples
as the “stronger one” who “comes after” John (1:7–8, 16–20).
Moreover, after a series of confrontations with evil demons and Pharisee
opponents, Jesus ascends a mountain to summon twelve emissaries28 to be with
him at the center of this unprecedented Reign of God. Mark emphasizes Jesus’s
full authorization of them to inaugurate this Kingdom in complete solidarity with
himself: “to be with him, to be sent out to proclaim the [same] message, and to
receive the authority to cast out demons” (3:14b–15). Jesus even changes some of
the names of these twelve representatives of Israel to be more in line with this new
advance of “the Anointed One” of God’s reign.29 Appropriately, only Mark depicts
the twelve “anointing” (ἀλείφω) the ill and demon-possessed as they announce
eschatological judgment upon households that do not receive them.30 More than
that, Mark narrates that when they went out, Herod confused their mission with
John’s, thinking the baptizer had been raised from the dead, whereas others,
ironically, concluded that Elijah had now appeared (6:7–16; cf. 1:2b–c!). Thus
unwittingly to them, Jesus’s disciples are so identified with the anointed beloved
Son (1:1), that as a group, they can be aligned with John and his disciples (1:3),
or just as easily with Elijah and his “righteous ones,” namely, Elijah’s remnant who
precede him as agents of judgment (1:2b–c). Compare Mal 3:17–21:
And on the day on which they will be mine, says the Lord Almighty, I will make them a
special possession …. And they shall return and discern between the righteous and the
27 Exod 33:2a: καὶ συναποστελῶ τὸν ἄγγελόν μου πρὸ προσώπου σου; cf. Exod 23:20
in Mark 1:2b: καὶ ἰδοὺ ἐγὼ ἀποστέλλω τὸν ἄγγελόν μου πρὸ προσώπου σου …. In every
occurrence in Exodus of the special “messenger” that the Lord “sends,” the role of this ἄγγελος
is to secure and thus vouchsafe for the people of Israel the “end” goal of their exodus, viz., to
worship God freely and fully in a “promised land” of God’s rule over them. “My messenger”
thus becomes symbolic of God’s own presence to bring to fruition this promise of God’s “reign”
over the earth through a liberated and transformed Israel.
28 The NA28 agrees with NA27 and earlier editions in placing “whom he named apostles” in
brackets, or on the border of the likelihood that this is the earliest discernible form, if not the
author’s own approved or ‘final’ redaction of his work.
29 Mark 3:16–17.
30 Mark 6:10–13 (ἤλειφον ἐλαίῳ πολλοὺς ἀρρώστους καὶ ἐθεράπευον, v. 13).
lawless, because, look, the day of the Lord is coming with burning fire as a great oven and
it will utterly consume them (καὶ ἔσονταί μοι, λέγει κύριος παντοκράτωρ, εἰς ἡμέραν,
ἣν ἐγὼ ποιῶ εἰς περιποίησιν …. καὶ ἐπιστραφήσεσθε καὶ ὄψεσθε ἀνὰ μέσον δικαίου καὶ
ἀνὰ μέσον … ἀνόμου διότι ἰδοὺ ἡμέρα κυρίου ἔρχεται καιομένη ὡς κλίβανος καὶ φλέξει
αὐτούς, Mal 3:17a, 18a, 19a [ET 4:1]).
d. Opposition to Jesus the Christ’s, Son of God’s sending (Mark 1:1–3), as

often observed, sets in quickly. Already by 3:6, Jewish leaders of the people, the
Pharisees along with supporters of Herod, “the Herodians,”31 have determined to
put an end to Jesus’s public impact (cf. “kings and princes” of Isa 49:6–7 (kings,
princes despise Israel but will prostrate before the servant; 52:15 → 53:12; cf.
45:4 [Cyrus]). They accuse Jesus of performing in league with the ruler of the
demonic (Mark 3:20). Only the one “stronger than” Satan can defeat his power
(3:23–27).
Nevertheless, in Mark, those “with Jesus” and those “against Jesus” do not
stack up neatly. The “insider” disciples led by the Twelve, show no more evidence
of comprehending “in private” what Jesus has to teach them about the mysteries
of God’s Reign than the crowds who must be taught in parables (4:33–34).
In fact, as Mark’s plot proceeds, the Twelve and other disciples recede in their
understanding of what Jesus is trying to teach them:
(1) Nazareth no longer remains Jesus’s home32 as he adopts the friendlier
folk of Capernaum; yet even there, surrounded by familiar acquaintances, Jesus
draws a line around those “insiders” who make up his real home or family, and
those next of kin and others who remain “outside” (3:20–21 → 3:31–35).
(2) Pharisee opposition is characterized by Jesus as early as 3:5 as “hardness
of heart” and will escalate in 7:6–7 to matching Isaiah who “prophesied to you
hypocrites, as it is written … ‘your heart is far from me, teaching human pre-
cepts as [Divine] ordinances’” (LXX Isa 29:13). In Mark 8:11 Jesus exchanges the
Pharisees’ “sign” of “testing him” into “the leaven” of “this generation’s” demand
for proof of his authority which degrades the whole lump of the people. In the
Trans-Jordan and Jerusalem sections the Pharisees continue their “testing,”
wanting to trigger legal action, Mark 10:2; 12:13, while Jesus again calls them
“hypocrites,” especially as their leaven results in mis-leading the people, now
including the disciples: (e. g., divorce [Pharisees 10:5–9] → 10:6–12 [disciples
“in private”]; cf. 12:15).
(3) But in Mark, the Twelve along with other disciples keep pace with the
Pharisees and their scribes in misconstruing what Jesus is conveying: (i) After
the miraculous feeding facilitated in large part by the disciples’ distributing the
food (6:30–44), Jesus approaches them from the sea, they become “terrified,” and
he calms the wind by joining them in the boat (6:45–51). According to Mark’s
31 Ἡρῳδιανοί, Mark 3:6; 12:13; cf. 8:15 (v. l.).

32 Cf. Mark 2:1; 3:20.
narrator, their fear and utter amazement is blamed for their inability to “com-
prehend the loaves” (6:52a), with the added caveat, “their hearts were hardened”
(6:52b). (ii) Curiously after another feeding, with the disciples dutifully handing
out the food ‘that keeps giving,’ the Pharisees demanding a sign, and Jesus and
the disciples again in a boat, the scenario of mis-comprehension and hardened
hearts repeats itself, but now with the added drama that because the disciples
have only one loaf in the boat, they take Jesus’s warning – “Beware of the yeast
of the Pharisees and the yeast of Herod” – as upbraiding them for not having
enough bread – “It is because we have no bread!” (8:16). Jesus does not abide
their vapid response. In fact, he pronounces Isa 6:9–10 over them as he had done
to the crowds in 4:12. They cannot “see,” nor “hear,” and their “hardened hearts”
make them unable to “understand” or even to “remember” what they had just
experienced (8:14–21). Like the crowds, they are now “outsiders” and require
“parables” (e. g., 9:42–48, 49–50; cf. 4:10–12).
(4) Mark 8:27–33 is appropriately labelled the Markan ‘watershed’ out of
which the plot flows irrevocably to its climax, the cross. This observation is not
only insightful but also makes special sense given the Twelve’s increasing resis-
tance to Jesus’s calling as the Christ, Son of God (1:1), but also to Jesus’s express
awareness of his increasing separation from his disciples and his role as the Son
of humankind to be rejected by all of humanity:
(i) “On the way” Jesus puts the question to his conceptually-challenged dis-
ciples regarding who they think Jesus to be. In contrast to the crowds, Jesus is not
John the Baptizer redivivus nor Elijah come back, nor another of the prophets
but rather “the Christ.” Although the title is not incorrect, Peter and the Eleven’s
conception is not only wrong or confused or even “hard hearted.” Rather, it is
diametrically opposed to who Jesus is, and thus, like the wilderness temptation of
Mark 1:12–13, is aligned squarely with “the Satan” in his domination of human
thought oriented against God. Not only do the disciples require parables, but
they still need to “change their whole way of thinking” (cf. 1:15, μετανοεῖν). Or
as Jesus says to them shortly thereafter, they will have to see that the Kingdom of
God has already arrived with power” (9:1b).
(ii) On the “high mountain” Jesus takes the nucleus of the smaller group
within Israel with him where he is metamorphosed into bright light along with
Elijah and Moses who speak with him. Peter does not know exactly how to react
because he and James and John are (again) terrified before this spectacle (cf.
6:50). But this most inner core now become privy to a call from Heaven that
summons them to be fully incorporated into the calling that Jesus had received
at his baptism as a “voice from an overshadowing cloud” – reminiscent of the
Lord’s voice from the fiery cloud during the Exodus – sounds:33 “This is my
beloved Son, hearken to him” (9:7). Yet, as the voice subsides, Jesus remains
33 E. g., Exod 19:16–25. Ταῦτα κατελάλησαν οἱ φοβούμενοι τὸν κύριον, ἕκαστος πρὸς

alone with the three, insisting, as they descend, that they tell no one about what
they had just “seen until the Son of humankind should rise from the dead.” They
keep this revelation of the beloved Son a secret and are especially confused what
Jesus could mean by the Son of humankind “rising from the dead” (9:10).
(iii) Since they had just witnessed the coming (and disappearance) of Elijah,
their first question to Jesus before they meet the crowd below, makes perfect
sense: “Why do the scribes say that Elijah must first come?” (9:11). Jesus retorts
that Elijah is indeed “coming first to restore all things” (ἀποκαθιστάνει πάντα),
a clear allusion to Mal 3:23 (ἀποκαταστήσει καρδίαν πατρὸς πρὸς υἱόν …)
and Elijah’s return to restore Torah adherence, before the Lord himself comes
with judgment. But Jesus immediately shifts to a different figure: “How then is
it written about the Son of humankind that he is to suffer many things and be
treated with contempt? But I tell you that indeed Elijah has already come, and
they did to him whatever they pleased, just as it is written about him!” (9:13).
e. It seems that Jesus will not speak about Elijah’s return without also speak-
ing about himself as the suffering Son of humankind, who must also be treated
contemptuously. In Jesus’s comprehension of the scriptures, Elijah is linked in-
separably to this Son of humankind both as the one who comes first to do the
preparatory work of restoration, as well as to prepare the way of suffering for the
Son of humankind’s own suffering of degradation and contempt from his own
people.
But to which scriptures does Mark turn or assume that Jesus is referring
to when he uses that designation for himself as the Son of humankind (e. g.,
Mark 9:12, πῶς γέγραπται ἐπὶ τὸν υἱὸν τοῦ ἀνθρώπου ἵνα πολλὰ πάθῃ καὶ
ἐξουδενηθῇ;)?34 Why is there not the usual tag, “as is written in Isaiah the pro-
phet” or “David himself said through the Holy Spirit,”35 etc.? Could it not be
that the scripture to which Jesus refers are the citations that Mark has opened
with from his ἀρχή (1:2–3), the hybrid passages that congeal through Isaiah to
announce the arrival of the “messenger” who prepares the “end time” “way of
the Lord?” As the ἀρχή, these scriptures trumpet the voice of the messenger
in the Exodus, the restoration of Torah adherence before the judgment, and
the return of the exiles from “the wilderness” with “the voice” announcing the
end-time coming of the Lord himself to Jerusalem. Does Mark present Jesus as
himself pointing back to the opening scriptures which broadcast John’s and Je-
sus’s coming as the main story line of Mark’s “good news?” Certainly Mark’s
retrospect in chapter six leaves no doubt about how John fared as the “voice in
τὸν πλησίον αὐτοῦ· καὶ προσέσχεν κύριος καὶ εἰσήκουσεν καὶ ἔγραψεν βιβλίον μνημοσύνου
ἐνώπιον αὐτοῦ τοῖς φοβουμένοις τὸν κύριον καὶ εὐλαβουμένοις τὸ ὄνομα αὐτοῦ.
34 “How is it written about the Son of humankind that he is to go through many sufferings
and be treated with contempt?” (9:12). The narrative context is immediately following the
Transfiguration when the subject of “Elijah” is still on the three disciples’ mind.
35 Mark 12:36–37.
the wilderness,”36 that the “king” and his minions “did [do] to him whatever they
pleased!” (9:13; cf. the Herodians in 3:6).
(1) Mark 8:27–9:13 not only functions to propel the plot along a determined
trajectory, but like Isa 49:1–6 (7), the solidarity of the three groups also cracks
open irreversibly when the calling from Heaven is re-confirmed for the servant’s
incomparable role of effecting salvation for Israel and through Israel for all
the nations (cf. Mark 7:24–30; 13:24–27; 15:39). As the servant smaller group
aligned with the servant, the disciples are told to hearken to Jesus the “beloved
Son,” and Jesus the servant immediately commands them to “pick up their own
crosses,”37 to follow him to Jerusalem where Israel’s leaders (representing all of
Israel) will deliver him over to the “Gentile” Romans “to be mocked, abused,
degraded, and expunged, and after three days rise again” (10:34; cf. the “three
passion predictions,” 8:31 → 9:31–32 → 10:32–34). In the second poem in Isaiah,
the servant learns that he must endure the ever burgeoning opposition in order
to continue gathering all of Israel to himself, despite the seemingly insurmount-
able antipathy he encounters. This suffering is required not only for the salvation
of Israel, but, as a covenant of Israel for the nations,38 the servant’s suffering
must extend also to the “end(s) of the earth” (Isa 49:6; cf. Mark 13:27). Indeed,
in Mark’s preview of Jesus’s coming with final judgement, when the servant’s
suffering for all the nations nears completion, this Son of humankind “will send
out his messengers (ἄγγελοι) to gather his elect from the four winds of the
earth, from the ends of the earth to the ends of heaven” (καὶ τότε ἀποστελεῖ τοὺς
ἀγγέλους καὶ ἐπισυνάξει τοὺς ἐκλεκτοὺς [αὐτοῦ] ἐκ τῶν τεσσάρων ἀνέμων ἀπ’
ἄκρου γῆς ἕως ἄκρου οὐρανοῦ (13:27)).
Thus approximately midway through the building plot in Deutero-Isaiah and
in Mark, the calling of the servant is elaborated even more, with rejection and
degradation at the heart of the call. In both Isa 49:1–6 (7) and Mark 9:2–13 the
servant himself interprets God’s voice to his cohorts with the assurance that the
path of suffering is the only way that will lead to life. Yet the ‘why’ of suffering
remains a secret. As this stealth mission continues and the Twelve argue which of
them is the greatest (Mark 9:33–37), prevent others from exorcising evil (9:38–
41), and demand powerful positions in the imminent new reign (10:35–40),
Jesus grasps how quickly he is becoming isolated from the servant Israel – both
nation and smaller group – to become, alone, the solitary suffering servant who,
as the representative Son of all humankind, must be “delivered over into the
hands of human beings” to forfeit his life as a “ransom price (λύτρον) for the
many” (10:45).39
36 Mark 6:17–29.
37 Mark 8:34–35.
38 “Look, I [the Lord] have appointed you to be a covenant of the people/nation” (ἰδοὺ,
τέθεικά σε εἰς διαθήκην γένους, Isa 49:6b) is only in the LXX; cf. 49:8.
39 The immediate context which sparks this “ransom/atonement” language from Jesus is
(2) Why must the Son of humankind give his life over for the sins of Israel
and apparently for the nations as well? Mark has Jesus openly divulge his secret
identity at the critical ‘turning point’ or ‘climax’ (τὸ μετάβασις) of his narrative.
To the question by the High Priest in the Sanhedrin hearing, “Are you the Christ,
the Son of the Blessed?,” Jesus answers, “I am, and you shall see the Son of hu-
mankind sitting at the right hand of the Almighty40 and coming with the clouds
of heaven” (Dan 7:13 in Mark 14:62). Just as Mark opens his narrative with the
same confession – the “Christ, Son of God” (1:1) – and immediately cites the
Scriptural elaboration for that conviction – Jesus himself also discloses his true
identity as the anointed Son by appealing to Scripture.
“As one like a son of humankind” who ascends in the clouds into the throne
room of one “as the Ancient of Days”41 – and is embraced and enthroned by
the heavenly court with the dominion and glory and kingship of the Most High
(Dan 7:13–14a), so Jesus profiles his role in God’s Kingdom and fate of suffering
and exaltation by summoning this text to identify himself. Jesus’s suffering at
the hands of all Israel and for all humanity through the kings of the Gentiles is
crowned as the highest status and honor conceivable, as equal to God’s own glory
and honor. Thus the coronation of the suffering of Jesus the servant, Son of human-
kind, ensures that when “the court shall sit in judgment” (Dan 7:26), the Kingdom
of God will be given to the “saints of the Most High.”42 Those who have suffered
for the “glory” of God’s Kingdom in solidarity with the One who was hailed as the
“Son of God” by evil spirits and a Roman centurion alike, but who presented him-
self as the quintessential human being, “the son of the human-kind,” these are the
true children who will enter the Kingdom of God (cf. Mark 8:34–38; 10:13–16,
42–44; 13:9–13). It is the humiliation of his rejection and the bludgeoning of his
body upon the unspeakable43 cross that is elevated to the “right hand of the exalted
power” (τὸν υἱὸν τοῦ ἀνθρώπου ἐκ δεξιῶν καθήμενον τῆς δυνάμεως), of the one
who, mysteriously, had already been heralded in advance as “Son of God” (1:1,
11 → 15:39b [centurion: ἀληθῶς οὗτος ὁ ἄνθρωπος υἱὸς θεοῦ ἦν]; cf. 9:7; 14:61b
[ὁ υἱὸς τοῦ εὐλογητοῦ]; Dan 7:18, 26–27).
James’s and John’s request to occupy the most prestigious seats in the coming Kingdom of God
(Mark 10:35–40).
40 Or, “the Power,” i. e., “the Powerful One.”
41 LXX and Theod. Dan 7:13b for Aram.: “Ancient/Old in/of days ….” E. g., καὶ ἰδοὺ ἐπὶ τῶν
νεφελῶν τοῦ οὐρανοῦ ὡς υἱὸς ἀνθρώπου ἤρχετο, καὶ ὡς παλαιὸς ἡμερῶν παρῆν (LXX).
42 Undoubtedly the Ḥasidim who suffered under the Seleucids for their refusal to give up all
public and ritual display of Torah adherence (see esp. Daniel 7–12).
43 Cf. Cicero, Rab. Perd. 16 “But the executioner, the veiling of the head and the very word
‘cross’ should be far removed not only from the person of a Roman citizen but from his thoughts,
his eyes and his ears. For it is not only the actual occurrence of these things or the endurance of
them, but liability to them, the expectation, indeed the very mention of them, that is unworthy
of a Roman citizen and a free man.” (trans. H. G. Hodge, Cicero, vol. 9: Pro lege manilia, Pro
Caecina, Pro Cluentio, Pro Rabirio perduellionis reo, LCL 198 [London: Heinemann; New York:
Putnam’s Son’s, 1927], 467–69, emphasis added).
(3) The “wild beasts” (τὰ θήρια) of Daniel 7–844 may be difficult to iden-
tify as individual groups, but in Jewish apocalyptic literature, this primordial-
“kind” imaging of creatures of the ‘animal kingdom’ develops a code for forces
and/or beings that betoken evil, whether celestial- or human- beings.45 Already
Jesus in the wilderness contends with the roiling, amassing evil of “wild beasts”
which, under the aegis of “the Satan,” will try to destroy him (πειραζόμενος
ὑπὸ τοῦ σατανᾶ καὶ ἦν μετὰ τῶν θηρίων, Mark 1:13; cf. 1:23!). Certain “de-
mons” recognize that he is no ordinary human being, “I know who you are,
the Holy One of God” (εἶ ὁ ἅγιος τοῦ θεοῦ) (1:24); “you are the Son of God”
(σὺ εἶ ὁ υἱὸς τοῦ θεοῦ) (3:11), et al.46 Mark’s short detail, “and the messengers/
ἄγγελοι were attending/or serving him” (καὶ οἱ ἄγγελοι διηκόνουν αὐτῷ,
1:13c), is no passing comment but an adumbration of Jesus’s struggles through
the whole “way of the Lord” and the aid he can draw upon against the wiles of
“the Adversary.” Again the roles of οἱ ἄγγελοι in Exodus 23 and in Malachi 3
shimmer through.
Undoubtedly the most deleterious influence of the Satan in Mark is the
domination of humanity’s thinking, a personified evil that opposes the special
human capacity of deliberating and adjudicating a variety of understandings and
approaches to life in a ‘world’ filled with multifarious forces and manifestations
of the Divine. According to Jesus’s inaugural preaching of “the Gospel of God”
(1:14), human beings need to change and radically ‘re-imagine,’ re-calibrate their
views of reality: “Repent/change your mind-set and embrace the ‘good news,’”
for “the Kingdom of God is at hand”: (ἤγγικεν ἡ βασιλεία τοῦ θεοῦ· μετανοεῖτε
καὶ πιστεύετε ἐν τῷ εὐαγγελίῳ, 1:15). When as late in the plotting as Mark 8,
when Jesus addresses Peter, “You, Satan, get behind me, for you [Peter? Satan?]
do not set your mind on the things of God but on those of human beings” (8:33),
it has become transparent that the “beginning” epiphany of evil in the desert
modulates a throbbing, surging pulse throughout the rest of Mark that will beat
its course to the cross.
But if Mark’s ‘beginning’ (ἀρχή) announces the coming of the Lord, God,
through the “way of the Lord” that leads to the arrival of the Kingdom of God ….
And if the arrival of the anointed beloved one heralds the fullness of time and
44 In Daniel 7–8, LXX: 11 occurrences; Theodotion: 14 occurrences.

45 Cf. with n. 26 above. Daniel 7:1–28 depicts the succession of four “wild beasts,” or four
great kingdoms that conquer each predecessor until the fourth beast becomes the strongest,
most brazen, most blasphemous force against God than all the other “beasts.” Only when the
“Ancient of Days comes” is the fourth beast destroyed as the “judgment has sat” and taken
away the “dominion” of the fourth beast and given it to “the saints of the Most High,” with the
result that “His kingdom is an everlasting one and all power shall serve and be subject to Him”
[God] (Dan 7:26–27 [LXX]: καὶ τὴν βασιλείαν καὶ τὴν ἐξουσίαν καὶ τὴν μεγαλειότητα αὐτῶν
καὶ τὴν ἀρχὴν πασῶν τῶν ὑπὸ τὸν οὐρανὸν βασιλειῶν ἔδωκε λαῷ ἁγίῳ ὑψίστου βασιλεῦσαι
βασιλείαν αἰώνιον).
46 E. g., Mark 5:7; 9:17–24.
breaks out with the hailing of Jesus as “Hosanna, ‘blessed is he who comes in
the name of the Lord,’ blessed be the coming Kingdom of our father David”
(11:9–10), then Mark’s identification of Jesus as the coming “Son of humankind”
who offers the suffering “saints of the Most High” as his gift to the world precisely
at the right “time,” may indeed be a rhetorical moniker for Mark’s “good news”
of the fulfillment of the “coming of the Ancient of Days” to bring judgment for
“those who suffer for my sake and for the sake of the gospel” (8:35). If this is true,
then according to Mark, Jesus regards his servant calling to suffer at the con-
summate hour along with the servant Israel on behalf of Israel and the nations
as simultaneously the same clarion call to suffer as the representative human
being. This son or offspring of the human-kind in creation will restore all of
the creation by God by delivering over his own divine-human life to God as an
atonement or ransom of redemption for the whole world’s disobedience and
hostility against God for all times and places (ἔσται πάντων δοῦλος· καὶ γὰρ ὁ
υἱὸς τοῦ ἀνθρώπου οὐκ ἦλθεν διακονηθῆναι ἀλλὰ διακονῆσαι καὶ δοῦναι τὴν
ψυχὴν αὐτοῦ λύτρον ἀντὶ πολλῶν, 10:44b–45; 13:24–27 [v. 27, τότε ἀποστελεῖ
τοὺς ἀγγέλους καὶ ἐπισυνάξει τοὺς ἐκλεκτοὺς [αὐτοῦ] ἐκ τῶν τεσσάρων ἀνέμων
ἀπ’ ἄκρου γῆς ἕως ἄκρου οὐρανοῦ], 32–37).
f. The mystery of suffering is now exposed: Vicarious suffering is at the heart
of God’s character: God, and the Son of God-the Son of humankind, suffer for
the sins of “the many” “according to the scriptures.” Jesus’s suffering death is
not only received by God as worthy of God, but the heavenly court’s standing
signifies the very essence of God’s presence, the character of the God who is
eternally worshipped and who embraces this suffering as God’s own glory, the
very holiness of God, the very character of his rule.47 The formal court room
scene of the acceptance and investiture of the suffering “holy ones” of the days
of persecution of Israel under the Seleucids and the Romans,48 provides a telling
backdrop for the role of suffering.
The analogy to the suffering servant of Deutero-Isaiah during the hegemony
of the Persians is manifest. The servant as the representative human being par
excellence who is fully submissive to God, and is called to do something “new”
and “unprecedented” in restoring all of creation to God’s “just” will or “plan,”49
forges a special solidarity with a smaller group within Israel through their
suffering that is exalted and “glorified” as God’s kingly rule, to launch God’s final
47 Dan 7:18, 22 [LXX]: καὶ παραλήψονται τὴν βασιλείαν ἅγιοι ὑψίστου καὶ καθέξουσι τὴν
βασιλείαν ἕως τοῦ αἰῶνος ἕως τοῦ καὶ αἰῶνος τῶν αἰώνων … ἕως τοῦ ἐλθεῖν τὸν παλαιὸν
ἡμερῶν, καὶ τὴν κρίσιν ἔδωκε τοῖς ἁγίοις τοῦ ὑψίστου, καὶ ὁ καιρὸς ἐδόθη καὶ τὸ βασίλειον
κατέσχον οἱ ἅγιοι.
48 See esp. 1 Macc 1:10–9:73; 2 Macc 3:1–15:36.
49 βουλή: Isa 44:25: “confirming the word of his servant and verifying the counsel of his
messengers” (καὶ ἱστῶν ῥήματα παιδὸς αὐτοῦ καὶ τὴν βουλὴν τῶν ἀγγέλων αὐτοῦ ἀληθεύων);
46:10: “All my counsel shall hold firm, and all of the things I have planned, I shall accomplish”;
55:8: “For my counsels are not as your counsels!”
reign over the cosmos.50 From that “exalted power” the Son of humankind will
return to end the great “affliction” (Mark 13:24a, ἐν ἐκείναις ταῖς ἡμέραις μετὰ
τὴν θλῖψιν ἐκείνην), to carry out the final sifting of all humankind, and to send
his “messengers (ἄγγελοι) to gather his elect from the four winds, from the ends
of the earth to the ends of heaven” (13:24–27).
g. To what extent Mark depends upon Isaiah 50:4–7 and 52:13–53:12 can-
not be fully determined. But with the preponderance of the παραδίδωμι verb
in the passion predictions,51 Jesus’s arrest, led and “delivered over” by one of
the servant group,52 and the link to “the many” (πολλοί) depicting the effect of
the servant’s death in Mark 10:45, all of these correspondences and more lead
to the suspicion that the scenario of the servant’s maltreatment and death and
vindication in Isaiah provides a primary template for Mark’s portrayal of Jesus’s
suffering, death, and exaltation.
As now predicted by Jesus and scripted in the scriptures he cites, the dis-
ciples represented by the Twelve, do not follow the servant, Son of humankind,
through the way of the cross. Instead:
(1) They oppose Jesus’s notion that, as the anointed Son of humankind, he
must be rejected by Israel’s leaders and their Gentile overlords (e. g., 8:32–33,
34–38; 9:17–19, 30–32, 42–48; 10:13–16, 28–31);
(2) They turn a deaf ear to Jesus’s example and command to give themselves
over for the benefit of others rather than promote themselves (e. g., 9:33–37,
38–41; 10:35–40, 41–45);
50 See esp. Isa 52:3–10, 13–15; 53:11–12; 55:3–5.

51 The consistent use of παραδίδωμι to describe both the forethought of Judas (Mark 14:10,
11) and the actual “turning of Jesus over” to the authorities is unusual, given παραδίδωμι’s
far greater generic sense in Hellenistic Greek of simply “giving or delivering something”
to someone, unless, of course, the selection of this verb, whether in the oral and/or written
stages of tradition, is a deliberate echoing of the “turning over of ” the servant figure of LXX
Isaiah 52:13–53:12 to the ruling authorities. Otherwise such close correlation, statistically
speaking, borders on the impossible.
Isaiah: 53:12c ἀνθ᾽ ὧν παρεδόθη εἰς θάνατον ἡ ψυχὴ αὐτοῦ; 53:12d, καὶ διὰ τὰς ἁμαρτίας
αὐτῶν παρεδόθη; cf. 47:3.
Mark’s Passion predictions: 9:31, παραδίδοται; 10:33, παραδοθήσεται; παραδώσουσιν; cf.
3:19.
Passion Narrative: 14:10, 11, Καὶ Ἰούδας Ἰσκαριὼθ ὁ εἷς τῶν δώδεκα ἀπῆλθεν πρὸς τοὺς
ἀρχιερεῖς ἵνα αὐτὸν παραδοῖ αὐτοῖς. οἱ δὲ ἀκούσαντες ἐχάρησαν καὶ ἐπηγγείλαντο αὐτῷ
ἀργύριον δοῦναι. καὶ ἐζήτει πῶς αὐτὸν εὐκαίρως παραδοῖ; 14:18, ἐσθιόντων ὁ Ἰησοῦς
εἶπεν· ἀμὴν … εἷς ἐξ ὑμῶν παραδώσει με; 14:21, οὐαὶ δὲ τῷ ἀνθρώπῳ ἐκείνῳ δι’ οὗ ὁ υἱὸς
τοῦ ἀνθρώπου παραδίδοται; 14:41–42, ἦλθεν ἡ ὥρα, ἰδοὺ παραδίδοται ὁ υἱὸς τοῦ ἀνθρώπου
εἰς τὰς χεῖρας τῶν ἁμαρτωλῶν. 42 ἐγείρεσθε … ἰδοὺ ὁ παραδιδούς με ἤγγικεν; 14:44,
δεδώκει δὲ ὁ παραδιδοὺς αὐτὸν σύσσημον αὐτοῖς; 15:1, ὅλον τὸ συνέδριον, δήσαντες τὸν
Ἰησοῦν ἀπήνεγκαν καὶ παρέδωκαν Πιλάτῳ; 15:10, ἐγίνωσκεν [Pilate] γὰρ ὅτι διὰ φθόνον
παραδεδώκεισαν αὐτὸν οἱ ἀρχιερεῖς; 15:15, Ὁ δὲ Πιλᾶτος … παρέδωκεν τὸν Ἰησοῦν
φραγελλώσας ἵνα σταυρωθῇ. Cf. 1:14, μετὰ δὲ τὸ παραδοθῆναι τὸν Ἰωάννην; 3:19, καὶ
Ἰούδαν Ἰσκαριώθ, ὃς καὶ παρέδωκεν αὐτόν.
52 See n. 39.
(3) They continue seeking to prevent certain lower status folk and especially
children from engaging Jesus (e. g., 9:33–37, 42–48; 10:46–52);
(4) They scold the marginal for showing loyalty and affection towards Jesus
while at the same time wasting precious resources (10:46–48; 14:3–9, 10–11);
(5) One of the Twelve caucuses with the chief priests to find a way “to deliver
Jesus over/betray him” to them (παραδίδωμι, 14:10–11);
(6) At the Passover meal Jesus declares one of them at table “will deliver
him over/betray him, just as it stands written of him as the Son of humankind”
(παραδίδωμι [2 ×], 14:18–21);
(7) At the Garden “one of the Twelve” leads the arresting party whom Jesus
hails as “my betrayer” (ὁ παραδιδούς με, 14:42);
(8) When Jesus is seized by the Temple police, all of Jesus’s disciples “de-
serted him and fled” (14:50) and Jesus knows exactly how to interpret what is
transpiring: “So that the scriptures might be fulfilled” (14:49), just as he had
already predicted (14:27, citing Zech 13:7);
(9) Three times another of the Twelve denies that he ever knew Jesus (14:26–
31, 66–72);
(10) Before the Sanhedrin ‘hearing’ the High Priest takes umbrage and twice
accuses Jesus of not answering any of the charges against him (14:60b–61a;
14:65b, spitting; cf. the servant twice silent, Isa 50:6; 53:7b) until the High Priest
asks him point blank whether he is “the Christ, the Son of the Blessed,” echoing
Mark’s ἀρχή, 1:1. Jesus’s self-identification leads to the kind of detailed mistreat-
ment showcased in Isa 50:6, 9: “spitting in the face,” “striking on the cheeks,”
“beating with rods,”53 etc. (14:65);
(11) Before Pilate’s tribunal, Jesus once again is silent, which – again – is
mystifying to the ruling judge (15:5b). The abuse against Jesus continues by the
Romans: flogged by Pilate’s soldiers (15:15b); humiliated by Roman class and
status standards (purple robe, crown of thorns, mocking salute, etc.); mocked by
passersby, high priests and scribes, and the “bandits” on their own crosses – all
of the ridicule and shame heaped upon Jesus’s specious claims to be a king or an
“anointed” ruler over Israel (15:16–32);
(12) When all of the parties – disciples/inner core, crowds, and leaders of
Israel, and bamboozled kings of the nations – abandon Jesus the Christ, Son of
God, Jesus himself now bewails the scourge of abandonment: “my God, my God,
why have you forsaken me?” (15:34; cf. Ps 22:1).
Like the servant of Isa 49:4, Jesus has exhausted his trusting submission to
the God to whom he had earlier cried, “Abba, Father” (Mark 14:32–36). But
unlike that servant, Jesus the servant does not receive an immediate assurance
that his last breath, too, is all a part of an overarching plan. He dies evidently
abandoned, all alone. Ironically some bystanders wonder if Jesus is crying out
53 Cf. Mark 10:34: ἐμπτύω, μαστιγόω; Isa 50:6: εἰς μάστιγας; ἐμπτύω.

for Elijah (15:35). Now apparently instead of Elijah or John the Baptizer crying
out in preparing the way for Jesus, Jesus cries out for Elijah to lead the way, any
way out of the darkness of total ‘forsakenness.’
2. The Mysterious Dénouement (καταστροφή)54 of the ‘Secret Servant’

“Long-lived and abundant posterity, light and life and understanding” are
promised to the servant of Isaiah (53:10–12a), as a crowning of his deliverance
from his travail. His future is as mysterious as is his identity. On the other hand,
the ending of Mark, 16:8, is hardly more forthcoming. The storyteller, like the
narrator in Isaiah 53, simply states Jesus’s future, that he has been raised and is
going before the disciples to Galilee where “there they will see him” (ἐκεῖ αὐτὸν
ὄψεσθε).
Perhaps there, with “fear and confusion” like the “we” confessors of Isa 53:1–
6, Jesus’s disciples and the long-lived legacy of his followers, the church, will
finally crack the code of Mark’s ‘messianic secret’ and see the “voice,” “my mes-
senger,” and “the Lord” of Mark’s mysterious ἀρχή, as the true “‘beginning’ (and
‘ending’) of the gospel of Jesus Christ, Son of God” (1:1).
E. Postscript: Reflections on Method
After this weaving of intricate parallels between the mysterious profiles of “my
servant/son, my beloved” in both Deutero-Isaiah (chs. 40–55) and the Gospel
of Mark, it might be advantageous to reflect on the methods and assumptions
utilized in this comparison.
1. Focus on the Plot (μῦθος/πράξεις) of Narrative

Ancient Greek literary critics were unified in describing ‘narrative’ written texts
(διήγησις/διήγημα) as organized and bound together into one ‘work’ through
the ‘plot.’ The ‘plot,’ however well conceived or executed, constitutes the ‘or-
ganized arrangement’ (οἰκονομία/σύνταξις) that distinguishes narrative from
other discourses or modes of communication. (See, e. g., §A above). This means,
then, that ancient Greek authors’ definitions and elaborations of diēgētic plot
54 Origen, Cels. 2.55.11–16: Celsus: “But this question [of believing that a person would
actually rise from the dead after predicting this] needs to be examined, whether one who
actually died would ever rise up from the dead with the same body; or do you think that the
stories of these others [Greek and middle eastern myths] both really are, as well as appear to
you to be, myths whereas the dénouement [καταστροφή] of your drama – the cry of his voice
from the spike when he expired and ‘the earthquake’ and the darkness – is experienced by you
somehow as honorable and convincing?” (ed. M. Borret, Origène: Contre Celse, vol. 1: Livres
I et II, SC 132 [Paris: Cerf, 1967], 414, trans. mine).
must form the approach that contemporary (post-)modern exegetes employ as

their first line of historical-critical analysis. Neither ‘genre’ nor more general ‘lit-
erary’ analyses of theme or point of view or other aspects of modern narratology
or other forms of formalist analysis can do justice to ancient authorial intent to
guide readers/hearers through specific interweavings of narrative connections
designed to persuade through the ‘storied arrangement’ or ‘plot’ of ancient Greek
narrative composition.
All four canonical Gospels can be summarized generally by a so-called ‘plot’
of Galilee → Jerusalem/ Temple → Crucifixion/(Resurrection); but this barest
of outlines does not take into account the poetics or discrete ‘disposition’ or
‘arrangement’ of each of these Gospels and therefore is derelict in the first order
of investigation. “Beginning, middle, end” is only one of a number of trajectories
required for plot analysis. Each plot of each Gospel is distinctive both in parts
and whole.
2. Mark’s Ἀρχή Signals the Plot and Goal of Mark’s Narrative (1:1–3)
In exploring Mark’s plot we have asked about Mark’s use of ἀρχή and the scrip-
ture quotations which apparently expound or at least expand the meaning of this
“beginning.” Since by the 4th c. BCE ἀρχή had already become a conventional
marker for narrative composition of multiple events and characters, it makes the
most sense to see if Mark is employing this narrative-rhetorical term with this
commonplace significance.
Our examination of the plots of both Deutero-Isaiah (chs. 40–55) and of
Mark seemed to beg closer comparison, especially since sonorous voices from
Heaven in Mark not only happened to echo similar voices in Isaiah 40–55, but
also because particular terminology in Mark appeared idiosyncratic to normal
Greek usage (e. g., παραδίδωμι) but was again reflecting similar referents in
similar scenarios through various phrases or a single word in Deutero-Isaiah.
But most of all we discerned a common sequence of cause and effect for both plots:
in Deutero-Isaiah and Mark, a chosen figure sent out as a voice or prophet of
God to a particular people is, in the end, dramatically rejected by his own people
and their leaders, even though this character is depicted throughout as doing
good everywhere he goes. Both the ‘turn-about’ and the ‘discovery’ shock the
logic of the depiction. The specially anointed agent of God is soundly, roundly
mistreated, and executed by his own people. Yet all of this plot entanglement
proceeded according to God’s pre-designated plan or will. In both, the secret
that God was perpetuating is revealed only through the violent death of God’s
anointed together with the ‘turn-around’ or promise of a greatly changed cosmic
state of affairs that effects God’s will for the salvation of the world.
Furthermore, we discovered that each of the three passages of Mark’s ἀρχή
in 1:2–3, blended into a hybrid under the aegis of the prophet Isaiah, revealed a
salient scenario from a more comprehensive profile of God’s saving actions to Is-
rael. Whether the exodus to new life and freedom – led by Moses, the despair of
post-exilic life lifted through the repristination and reinvigoration of the Mosaic
covenant by its final fulfillment – through the fiery preaching of Elijah, or the
evocative, earth-shattering visions of a transformed cosmos brokered through
the power of God’s immediate presence, “behold, your God (-reigns)” – through
the “beloved servant,” Mark’s “beginning” (1:1–3) truly sets the agenda, scope,
and τέλος for the entire plot.
3. Mark’s Imitation of Scripture

That a relatively unknown author named Mark would imitate a storied-sequence
from one of the greatest of the prophets of Jewish scripture in narrating the
“gospel of God” (Mark 1:14) through the words and actions of Jesus of Nazareth
may not seem so incredible given the early insistence, for example, by Paul
that especially Jesus’s crucifixion and resurrection took place “according to
the Scriptures” (e. g., 1 Cor 15:3, 4) or that “the gospel of God” (Rom 1:1) was
itself “good news proclaimed in advance through his [God’s] prophets in the
holy scriptures” (Rom 1:2). Paul goes on to single out the powerful declaration
of Jesus as “Son of God” “because of,” or “out of resurrection from the dead”
(τοῦ ὁρισθέντος υἱοῦ θεοῦ ἐν δυνάμει κατὰ πνεῦμα ἁγιωσύνης ἐξ ἀναστάσεως
νεκρῶν, Rom 1:4). Both Jesus’s death and his rising up are featured in Paul’s
prooimion as powerfully exhibiting “Jesus Christ” as “Son of God,” an incipit fit
for Mark’s Gospel!
Mark’s imitatio of the plot and plight of the “beloved, Spirit-filled servant”
should be viewed as well within the pervasive tendency from the second cen-
tury BCE on for students of Greek to imitate famous and most admired writers
in learning to compose and give oral presentations. Similarly, Jewish authors re-
writing and updating their scriptures as in the Genesis Apocryphon or Book of
Jubilees or the Testament of Moses or the pesher ‘commentary’ of Qumran or the
middah of gezera shawa (one passage explained by another) in Rabbinic texts,
etc., demonstrates the increasing pattern of applying older ‘epic’ or ‘scriptural’
texts to interpreting contemporary or imminent events of the future. Indeed,
contemporary “mimesis criticism” spotlights much of this mentality in its in-
clusion of material cultural artifacts as in pictures, art, frescoes, statues imitating
or reproducing scenes from a Homer or a Virgil or depictions of biblical scenes
in synagogues as in Dura Europos, etc. This phenomenon of contemporizing
significant events from ‘sacred’ traditions does not, of course, suggest that Mark
was a highly trained litterateur or a polished rhetorical writer but that the impulse
to re-frame new developments in a historical tradition through determinative
events of the past should come as no surprise for the first ‘readers’ of the “gospel
of God.” “Let the reader understand!” (Mark 13:14).
The Kijé Effect
Revenants in the Markan Passion Narrative
C. Clifton Black
I’m reminded of the governess in “The Turn of the Screw,” who arrives
at her new posting and is delighted to discover that her room has two
full-length mirrors, an unimaginable luxury and a clever bit of narrative
forecasting; she will soon encounter mirrors of a different sort in the form
of two ghosts (or are they?) haunting her young charges. Parul Sehgal1
This essay2 is an exercise in composition criticism, prompted by a phenomenon

I noted while writing a commentary on Mark but had not the space to develop
therein.3 As an aid for reading that Gospel’s passion narrative, I suggested an
analogy drawn from the twentieth century’s orchestral repertoire: Sergei Pro-
kofiev’s Lieutenant Kijé (1934).4 Its final movement, “The Burial of Kijé,” opens
with the same wistful cornet fanfare that announced a soldier’s birth in the first
movement. As the last movement unfolds, it symphonically superimposes most
of the suite’s principal themes. Arranged as a military dirge, Kijé’s leitmotif, intro-
duced in the first movement by warm woodwinds, is restated in the low registers
of clarinet and saxophone. Then follows a melancholy recapitulation by strings
of the second movement’s ballad, “Romance.” Sorrow yields to Kijé’s theme,
counterpointing a wedding melody from the third movement. Little remains but
a final, distant reprise of the cornet’s call. Prokofiev has orchestrated the musical
equivalent of a dying man’s life as it flashes before his eyes, to be forever closed.
1 “The Ghost Story Persists in American Literature. Why?” https://www.nytimes.

com/2018/10/22/books/review/ghost-stories.html.
2 For their manifold assistance, I tender sincere thanks to Professors Dale C. Allison, Jr.,
Edward McMahon, Elizabeth Struthers Malbon, George L. Parsenios, Dr. Robert Matthew
Calhoun, and Dr. M. J. P. O’Connor.
3 C. C. Black, Mark, ANTC (Nashville: Abingdon, 2011), 276–338.
4 Prokofiev’s suite (opus 60) rearranged excerpts from a soundtrack he had composed for
A. Feinzimmer’s motion picture of the same name (1933). “Kijé” is a fictional character in more
ways than one. In a story by Yuri Tynanonov on which the film is based, the Tsar misunder-
stands Parutchik je (“the lieutenant, however”) for Parutchik Kije (“Lieutenant Kijé”). Owing
to an unthinkable correction of the Tsar’s error and a rigid bureaucracy, a clerk dutifully enters
the name of “the lieutenant” into the military register, which, in turn, leads to a fabrication of
the life, marriage, distinguished service, and valiant death of “Kijé.” Prokofiev’s music captures
the comedy. Mark’s story expresses something else.
274 C. Clifton Black
Something very much like this is, I propose, what Mark 14–16 achieves:
interlaced memories of the Gospel’s previous chapters that wander in and out of
the listener’s ear. The Markan passion narrative is haunted by literal revenants:
figures, characterizations, events, names, and statements that “come back”5
from the Gospel’s previous chapters, reminding us, often subliminally, of what
has gone before. Study of Markan foreshadowing is nothing new;6 indeed, that
Gospel’s explicit, extensive use of the technique (1:2; 2:20; 3:19b; 4:25; 8:31;
9:9, 31; 10:28, 31, 33–34, 39; 12:9; 13:1–2, 5–37; 14:9, 13, 18, 27–30, 62) com-
mends its examination. Although some parallel incidents will be noted in what
follows,7 my attitude is retrospective8 and primarily focused on the more under-
stated, curiously “doubled” elements9 of which the Markan passion narrative is
5 From the French revenir: un esprit qui revient, “a ghost that walks.” Although I use the
term “ghost” metaphorically, it is worth noting that the word crops up in Mark: in 6:49 (par.
Matt 14:26) the disciples think that in Jesus, walking past them on the sea, they have seen a
φάντασμα. Most commentaries on Mark (including my own) say little about this. The most
extensive investigation of the subject I know is that of D. W. Geyer, Fear, Anomaly, and Un-
certainty in the Gospel of Mark, ATLAMS 47 (Lanham, Md.: Scarecrow, 2002), 241–67. Geyer
cites a wealth of primary sources pertaining to chthonic apparitions, such as the comment on
Homer, Od. 11.222 by Apollodorus of Athens in his Περὶ θεῶν (ibid., 246–47): “souls … like
images appearing in mirrors, … images of [the] mortal dead” (τὰς ψυχὰς τοῖς εἰδώλοις τοῖς ἐν
τοῖς κατόπτροις φαινομένοις ὁμοίας … βροτῶν εἴδωλα καμόντων, per Stobaeus, Ecl. 1.49.50).
Amid many terrifying images evocative of God’s judgment in Wis 17:4, 14 are τὰ φαντάσματα
and their cognate, τὰ θάσμα; cf. Job 4:15–16; 20:8. Deut 18:11 proscribes pagan necromancy.
V. M. Hope, ed., Death in Ancient Rome: A Source Book (London: Routledge, 2007), 236–47,
collects brief ghost stories from burial inscriptions, Plautus, Plutarch, Cicero, Suetonius,
Horace, Lucian, Propertius, Pliny the Younger, and Cassius Dio.
6 Among other studies, see J. Dewey, “Mark as Interwoven Tapestry: Forecasts and Echoes
for a Listening Audience,” CBQ 53 (1991): 221–36. Dewey’s article aims at a different target: the
refutation of a single linear structure in Mark. Although focused on a specific theological issue
(ἡ βλασφημία), J. F. Williams’s study of Markan flashbacks and flashforwards (“Foreshadowing,
Echoes, and the Blasphemy at the Cross [Mark 15:29],” JBL 132 [2013]: 913–33) crisscrosses my
offering here, as do E. S. Malbon, “Echoes and Foreshadowings in Mark 4–8: Reading and Re-
reading,” JBL 112 (1993): 211–30; and P. G. Bolt, Jesus’ Defeat of Death: Persuading Mark’s Early
Readers, SNTSMS 125 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2003). G. Genette (Narrative
Discourse: An Essay in Method, trans. J. E. Lewin [Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1980],
33–85) offers a fundamental study of the techniques of analepsis and prolepsis.
7 In this vein the seminal research is by R. Alter, The Art of Biblical Narrative (New York:
Basic Books, 1981); P. Miscall, The Workings of Old Testament Narrative (Philadelphia: For-
tress, 1983); and M. Sternberg, The Poetics of Biblical Narrative: Ideological Literature and the
Drama of Reading (Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press, 1985).
8 In a sense I am tacking opposite the direction proposed by J. Camery-Hoggatt: “Story
elements work synergistically to predispose the reader’s reactions to what follows. … Mark’s
reader encounters … story elements in this particular sequence” (Irony in Mark’s Gospel: Text
and Subtext, SNTSMS 72 [Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1992], 179, my italics).
I do not consider his observation wrong or wrongheaded; in this essay I simply reverse the
direction of the spyglass and its field of vision. I concur with his opinion “that indirect allusion
may effect reactions in the reader which are less directly conscious, but for that reason more
psychologically potent” (70).
9 As should become immediately evident, the kind of doubling I have in mind is not of the
The Kijé Effect 275
compounded. For that narrative’s attentive listener, or reader, the death of Jesus
weirdly recalls much of his life.
For the reader’s convenience, I assemble in Table 1 sixteen elements in
Mark 14–16,10 each of which will be considered in detail appropriate to its in-
tricacy.
1. Jesus’s Anonymous Anointer (14:3–9) 9. On the Via Dolorosa: An Unexpected

Simon (15:21)
2. The Disciples’ Preparation for Pass- 10. At Golgotha: “Those Who Were Cru-
over (14:12–16) cified with Him” (15:27, 32b)
3. Bread and Cup at the Last Supper 11. The Taunt: “Others He Saved; Himself
(14:22–25) He Cannot Save” (15:31)
4. Jesus in Gethsemane (14:32–42) 12. Waiting for Elijah (15:35–36)
5. A Hostile Multitude (14:43, 48; 15:8, 13. A Third Rip / A Third Pronouncement
11) (15:38–39)
6. Jesus and Peter on Trial (14:53–72) 14. The Ministering Women (15:40–41)
7. Pilate’s Interrogation, Sentencing, and 15. Joseph of Arimathea (15:42–47)
Execution of Jesus (15:1–5 + 16–32)
8. Barabbas (15:6–15) 16. A Young Man in the Empty Tomb (16:5–7)
Table 1: Doubled figures and leitmotifs in Mark’s passion narrative
A. Analyzing the Evidence
1. Jesus’s Anonymous Anointer (Mark 14:3–9)

Bethany’s magnanimous devotée of Jesus, who anointed his head from an
alabaster jar with pure nard, worth more than three hundred denarii and, thus,
“quite expensive” (πολυτελοῦς, 14:3, 5), is a spiritual sister of the destitute widow
in 12:41–44, who gave her entire livelihood (ὅλον τὸν βίον αὐτῆς, 12:44). Both
linguistic sort (such as pleonasms and verbal repetitions, double questions, and antithetical
parallelism) scrutinized by F. Neirynck, Duality in Mark: Contributions to the Study of the
Markan Redaction, BETL 31 (Leuven: Leuven University Press, 1988).
10 With most commentators, I reckon 14:1 as the passion narrative’s beginning; see, e. g.,
V. Taylor, The Gospel according to St. Mark, 2nd ed. (New York: Macmillan, 1966), 524; J. Gnil-
ka, Das Evangelium nach Markus, 2 vols., EKKNT 2 (Zürich: Benzinger; Neukirchen-Vluyn:
Neukirchener, 1978, 1979), 2:216–17; M. D. Hooker, The Gospel according to Saint Mark,
BNTC (London: Black, 1991), 324–25; E. K. Broadhead, Prophet, Son, Messiah: Narrative
Form and Function in Mark 14–16, JSNTSup 97 (Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 1994);
C. A. Evans, Mark 8:27–16:20, WBC 34B (Nashville: Nelson, 2001), 351–53; A. Yarbro Collins,
Mark: A Commentary, ed. H. W. Attridge, Hermeneia (Minneapolis: Fortress, 2007), 620); R. A.
Culpepper, Mark, SHBC (Macon, GA: Smyth & Helwys, 2007), 479; J. Marcus, Mark: A New
Translation with Introduction and Commentary, 2 vols., AYB 27–27A (New Haven, CT: Yale
University Press, 2000, 2009), 2:924–31; M. A. Beavis, Mark, Paideia (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker
Academic, 2011), 206–9). Were one to start the clock at 14:32 with R. E. Brown (The Death of
the Messiah: From Gethsemane to the Grave, 2 vols., ABRL [New York: Doubleday, 1994]), the
following analysis would lose little in substance.
are anonymous: the evangelist focuses not on who they are, but on what they
have done. Both are incredibly generous, more so than any male figure in this
Gospel save Jesus himself (6:30–44; 8:1–10). Both are contrasted with others
more privileged than they, whose contributions to the proceedings pale by com-
parison with theirs (the many rich donors who throw much into the temple’s
treasury [12:41b]; the chief priests and scribes, who bribe one of the Twelve to
assist them in capturing Jesus [14:1b, 10–11]). The religious causes to which both
women have committed themselves – Jerusalem’s temple and God’s Messiah –
will soon appear irretrievably lost (13:1–2; 14:8b).11 There’s not the slightest hint
that either is aware of the full import of her donation; both “[have] done what
[they] could” (cf. 14:8a) in spite of their seemingly wasted benevolence. In both
cases Jesus alone can assay their gifts’ genuine value and interpret it for others.
Each is not only the other’s Doppelgänger; both are doubles for Jesus himself,
who will pay for others the ultimate price (10:45). “For what can one give in
exchange for his very self ?” (8:37).12 Bethany’s benefactor also plays Jekyll to
Judas’s Hyde: both did the most of which each was capable. For their antithetical
acts, wherever the gospel is preached (14:9) neither has ever been forgotten.13
2. The Disciples’ Preparation for Passover (Mark 14:12–16)

Mark 14:12–16 varies his pattern of doubling. In this instance two unnamed dis-
ciples are dispatched by Jesus to prepare for a consequential event, the Passover’s
celebration. Their instructions are enigmatic: they are to go into the city, meet
a householder carrying a water-jug, say what is needed, then follow him to a
large upper room strewn and readied for the ritual (vv. 13–15). All transpires
as Jesus predicted, and those disciples do their duty (v. 16). In essence all this
duplicates Jesus’s directives, again addressed to two unidentified disciples, to go
into the village opposite Jerusalem and fetch a colt for Jesus to ride into the city
(11:1–2; cf. 1 Sam 10:1–8; 1 Kgs 17:8–16). Then, as later, Jesus demonstrates
preternatural knowledge of what his emissaries will encounter: the bystanders’
question of why they are doing this (11:3–5). Like the householder, the village
onlookers are satisfied that “the Lord has need of it” (11:3). The discovery of
both beast and room is “just as [Jesus] told [his disciples]” (14:16b; cf. 11:6).
11 In 14:7 Jesus’s reminder of the kairos – “but you will not always have me” – recalls
the foreshadowed bridegroom to be taken away (2:19–20; cf. E. Schweizer, The Good News
according to Mark, trans. D. H. Madvig [Atlanta: John Knox, 1970], 289). As D. Senior notes,
“‘Timing’ is an important feature of Mark’s Gospel” (The Passion of Jesus in the Gospel of Mark
[Wilmington, DE: Michael Glazier, 1984], 46).
12 For further consideration of these twin benefactors, see L. C. Sweat, The Theological Role
of Paradox in the Gospel of Mark, LNTS 492 (London: Bloomsbury T&T Clark, 2013), 109–10.
13 Between this reading and that of F. J. Moloney, The Gospel of Mark: A Commentary
(Peabody, MA: Hendrickson, 2002), 280–82, there are points of contact, though (to the best of
my recollection) we arrived at our similar conclusions independently of each other.
More than five decades ago, Vincent Taylor tabulated exact verbal consistencies
between these stories, which, with annotation, I reproduce in Table 2.14
Narrative Element Mark 11:1–6 Mark 14:13–16

1. Jesus’s commission to his ἀποστέλλει δύο τῶν ἀποστέλλει δύο τῶν
agents μαθητῶν αὐτοῦ (1) μαθητῶν αὐτοῦ (13)
2. His directive καὶ λέγει αὐτοῖς· ὑπάγετε καὶ λέγει αὐτοῖς· ὑπάγετε
εἰς τὴν κώμην (2) εἰς τὴν πόλιν (13)
3. Preparatory discovery καὶ … εὑρήσετε (2) καὶ ἀπαντήσει ὑμῖν (13)
4. Preparatory request εἴπατε· ὁ κύριος (3) εἴπατε … ὅτι ὁ διδάσκαλος
(14)
5. The disciples’ mission καὶ ἀπῆλθον (4) καὶ ἐξῆλθον (16)
6. Their discovery καὶ εὗρον (4) καὶ εὗρον (16)
7. Consonance with Jesus’s καθὼς εἶπεν ὁ Ἰησοῦς, καὶ καθὼς εἶπεν αὐτοῖς καὶ …
clairvoyance … (6) (16)
Table 2: Two missions of the disciples
Another parallel point is noteworthy. In both cases, Jesus’s disciples prepare

what he needs (11:7; 14:16) for a ceremony: in the first, a celebratory entrance
into Jerusalem (11:8–10); in the second, the Passover itself (14:16c). Though
not identical, these observances are analogous. Both imply Israel’s blessed re-
demption from enslavement: the Passover, inherently so; the entry, “the coming
kingdom of our father David” (ἡ ἐρχομένη βασιλεία τοῦ πατρὸς ἡμῶν Δαυίδ,
14:25). As David Catchpole has reminded us,15 the so-called “triumphal entry”
replicates a type-scene in Hellenistic Jewish depictions of Israel’s conquerors
who enter a city with popular pomp and ritual circumstance (1 Macc 4:19–25;
5:45–54; 13:43–48, 49–51; Josephus, A. J. 11.325–339, 342–345; 12.312, 348–
349; 13.304–306; 16.12–15; 17.194–239, 324–329, et al.). The uniquely Markan
touches to these legends are Jesus’s involvement of two disciples in fulfilling
elliptical commands. Both stories present seemingly extraneous details: after all,
neither Jesus’s entry to Jerusalem nor his celebration of Passover required their
narration. Mark not only includes these oblique details; he mirrors them, with
precise verbal replication, in a pair of different stories.16
14 Taylor, Gospel according to St. Mark, 536.

15 “The ‘Triumphal’ Entry,” in Jesus and the Politics of His Day, ed. E. Bammel and
C. F. D. Moule (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1984), 319–34, n. b. 319–21.
16 Commentators disagree on the precise relationship between 11:1–11 and 14:12–17.
Taylor (Gospel according to St. Mark, 536) regards the stories as doublets; Culpepper (Mark,
488–89) thinks the evangelist used one as a template for the other’s construction; Evans
(Mark 8:27–16:20, 369–70) accounts for their likenesses to Mark’s “tendency to be formu-
laic and repetitive.” Whatever the explanation, Hooker is correct that 14:13 contains eleven
consecutive words identical with those in 11:1–2 (Gospel according to Saint Mark, 332).
3. Bread and Cup at the Last Supper (Mark 14:22–25)

However one resolves the vexed question of whether or not Jesus’s final meal
with the Twelve was, as Mark indicates, a Passover (14:12, 14, 16),17 it is impos-
sible to hear Jesus’s actions and words “on the night he was betrayed” (1 Cor
11:23) without recalling the feeding miracles narrated in 6:30–44 and 8:1–10.
The parallelism is displayed in Table 3.
The Feeding of 5000 The Feeding of 4000 The Seder with the 12
(6:30–44) (8:1–10) (14:17–18, 22–26)
1. Temporal indication: ἤδη Temporal indication: Temporal indication: καὶ
ὥρα πολλή (35) ἤδη ἡμέραι τρεῖς ὀψίας γενομένης (14)
προσμένουσίν μοι (2)
2. References to eating: References to eating: καὶ References to eating: καὶ
ἀγοράσωσιν ἑαυτοῖς τί μὴ ἐχόντων τί φάγωσιν ἐσθιόντων (18, 22)
φάγωμεν (36) | δότε αὐτοῖς (1) | καὶ οὐχ ἔχουσιν τί
ὑμεῖς φαγεῖν (37) | καὶ φάγωσιν (2) | καὶ ἔφαγον
δώσομεν αὐτοῖς φαγεῖν (37) (8)
| καὶ ἔφαγον πάντες (42) |
καὶ … οἱ φάγοντες (44)
3. The recipients’ position: The recipients’ position: The recipients’ position:
ἀνέπεσαν (40) καὶ παραγγέλλει … καὶ ἀνακειμένων (18)
ἀναπεσεῖν (6a)
4. Jesus’s taking bread: καὶ Jesus’s taking bread: καὶ Jesus’s taking bread:
λαβὼν τοὺς … ἄρτους (41a) λαβὼν τοὺς … ἄρτους λαβὼν ἄρτον (22a)
(6b)
5. His blessing: εὐλόγησεν His blessing: His blessing: εὐλογήσας
(41b) εὐχαριστήσας (6b) | (22a)
εὐλογήσας (7)
6. His breaking: κατέκλασεν His breaking: ἔκλασεν His breaking: ἔκλασεν
(41b) (6b) (22a)
7. His giving to disciples: καὶ His giving to disciples: His giving to disciples:
ἐδίδου τοῖς μαθηταῖς (41c) καὶ ἐδίδου τοῖς μαθηταῖς καὶ ἔδωκεν αὐτοῖς (22a,
αὐτοῦ (6b) cf. 17, μετὰ τῶν δώδεκα)
Table 3: The three meals in Mark over which Jesus presides
In place of the fish (δύο ἰχθύας, 6:38c, 41ad, 43), which recede in the second feed-
ing (ἰχθύδια ὀλίγα, 8:7), the final supper has the goblet (τὸ ποτήριον), presented
in like manner as the bread (λαβὼν … εὐχαριστήσας ἔδωκεν αὐτοῖς, 14:23). In
Mark “the cup” has been presaged both positively and negatively: as that which
is commendably offered to those “who bear the name of Christ” (9:41); as that
which Jesus must drink (10:38b, 39b), would bypass if only he could (14:36),
17 J. Jeremias, The Eucharistic Words of Jesus, trans. N. Perrin (London: SCM, 1976), 15–88;
cf. B. Pitre, Jesus and the Last Supper (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 2015), 374–443.
and must also be quaffed by disciples who think themselves capable but are
clueless of its peril (10:39; cf. Ezek 23:32–34; Ps 75:8). In 14:24 the cup’s sac-
rificial connotation is unmistakable: “This is my blood of the covenant, which
is poured out for many.” The bread (or “loaves”) is also multiply symbolic with
varying valence. In 7:27–28 it signifies blessing, first to Israel’s children, then
to a Gentile; in 8:14–21 it suggests a superabundant providence (the baskets
of leftovers in 6:43; 8:8) that the disciples cannot comprehend; in 6:52 their
inability to understand the loaves is correlated with comparable failure to grasp
Jesus’s power, owing to their “hardness of heart.” Finally, in 14:22 the bread he
offers is to be taken by his disciples as “his body” (τὸ σῶμά μου), his very self,
on the verge of being sacrificed (v. 25). As with the loaf, so, too, the chalice: they
may not understand its significance, but all drink from it (v. 23) – including,
presumably, the teacher’s impending repudiator (vv. 27–31) and his betrayer as
well (vv. 18–21).
While the sense of the deeds and words in Mark 14:22–25 is intelligible, much
as Paul assumed for the Corinthians (1 Cor 11:23–25), in Mark they acquire
density of meaning by their recollection of the feeding miracles in chapters 6
and 8.18 For a third time, Jesus has hosted a supper in which his followers par-
take and others will benefit. In this prandial trio Jesus offers simple elements in
a ritualized manner, identically worded, in settings (Passover; the wilderness
[Mark 6:31–32, 35; 8:3–4] of Israel’s wandering [Exod 16:15, 32]) associated
with God’s singular nurturance of his chosen people. That providence was
ratified by blood in the Sinaitic covenant (Exod 24:3–8); in Jer 31:31–34 that
covenant had been renewed, even as it is revitalized in Mark 14:24 by the blood
of the compassionate Shepherd, stricken for his scattered sheep (6:34; 8:2;
14:27; cf. Num 27:15–17; Ezek 34:1–31; Zech 13:7). By closing the Last Supper
with Jesus’s confidence that he will drink “the fruit of the vine afresh in the
kingdom of God” (14:25; cf. Isa 42:12; Hab 3:7), Mark invites listeners to revisit
their interpretations of the feedings of the five and four thousand. No longer are
these tales mere reminders of earlier prophets’ sustenance of others with meager
resources (1 Kgs 17:8–16; 2 Kgs 4:1–7, 42–44); now they are also foretastes of
an eschatological banquet to come (Isa 25:6–8; 1 En. 62:12–14; 2 Bar. 29:5–8;
1QSa 2.11–22; Luke 14:16–24 || Matt 22:1–10).19
18 Doubtless those tales acquired eucharistic connotations in their traditional retelling

(Schweizer, Good News, 140), but for my purposes that is beside the point. The listener of
Mark 14:22–25 hears the bells of 6:30–44 and 8:1–10, just as other events and sayings of the
passion narrative resonate with harbingers earlier in the Gospel.
19 Many commentators have argued – none more vigorously than C. A. Bobertz, The Gospel
of Mark: A Liturgical Reading (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Academic, 2016) – that Mark conveys
a discernible progression from salvation to the Jews (6:30–44), then to Gentiles (8:1–10), finally
to all – “Jews and Gentiles, men and women, … present as the body of Christ to eat the one loaf
and to drink the one cup” in 14:22–24 (ibid., 164). This is a plausible reading. If so intended
4. Jesus in Gethsemane (Mark 14:32–42)

Throughout Mark, Jesus has compassionately responded to others in terrible
distress (e. g., 1:21–34; 2:1–12; 5:1–43; 6:30–56; 7:24–37; 8:22–26; 9:14–29;
10:46–52). At Gethsemane Jesus himself – “barely in control, on the verge of
panic”20 – pours out the grief that others have displayed. In Table 4, I take the
liberty of reproducing from my own commentary a comparison of the evange-
list’s meticulously detailed account of Jesus’s dark night of the soul with the
intercalated tales of Jairus’s daughter (5:21–24a, 35–43) and the hemorrhaging
woman (5:24b–34).21
Narrative Element 5:21–24a, 35–43 5:24b–34 14:32–42

1. Jesus’s shift in location 21 (sea crossing) 24b (following
32 (to Gethse-
Jairus) mane)
2. Presence of “children” 39–40 (Jairus’s 40–41 (cf. 10:24,
child) τέκνα)
3. Peter, James, and John 37 42–43
4. Obtuseness 40a (mourners’ 31 (disciples’ 34, 37–38, 40–41
laughter) protest) (slumber)
5. Hopelessness 23a, 35 (death) 25–26 34a (grieved unto
(bleeding) death)
6. Fear 36 (Jairus: φοβοῦ) 33 (the woman: 33 (Jesus:
φοβηθεῖσα) ἐκθαμβεῖσθαι καὶ
ἀδμονεῖν)
7. Falling to the ground 22 (Jairus: πίπτει) 33 (the woman: 35 (Jesus: ἔπιπτεν)
προσέπεσεν)
8. Familial language 23 (“little daughter”) 34 (“daughter”) 36 (“Abba, Father”)
9. Plea for relief 23b 27–28 36, 39, 41
10. Perception of the way 26 (Jesus’s encour- 28, 33a [8:31; 9:31;
forward agement) 10:33–34]
11. Withdrawal and 38a, 40 (mourners/ 32, 33b (the 36, 41–42 (Jesus)
advance Jairus) woman)
12. Apocalyptic ambience 41–42 (“get up”) 34 (“peace”) 36 (“cup”), 41
(“hour”)
Table 4: Four sufferers in Mark: Jairus, his daughter, the menorrhagic woman, Jesus
The legend of Jesus in Gethsemane is peppered with many elements fore-

shadowed in Mark: Jesus, the prayerful person (14:32, 35–36, 39; cf. 1:35; 6:41,
46; 8:6), in contrast with disciples who do not pray (9:28–29) but sleep when
they should stay awake and alert (14:37–38, 41a; 13:33–37); the doleful cup
by the evangelist, I wish he had made it clearer: plain enough, at least, to bolster my exegetical
confidence.
20 M. E. Boring, Mark: A Commentary, NTL (Louisville, KY: Westminster John Knox,
2006), 397.
21 Black, Mark, 295.
(14:36; cf. 10:38–39; 14:23–24); addlepated members of the Twelve (14:40; cf.
6:51b–52; 8:14–21; 9:5–6, 32, 35–41); the Son of Man who steps forward to
confront his destiny (14:41b–42; cf. 8:31; 9:31; 10:33–34; 14:21–22, 24). Yet so
polished is Mark’s mirror of chapters 5 and 14, so many are the reverberations
in characterization and speech, that here, I believe, we cross the threshold from
allusions into actual replication. In Mark 14:32–42 Jesus himself has become a
Doppelgänger – in fact, a Dreifachgänger – of two earlier suppliants, all at their
wits’ ends. By entwining Jesus and Jairus, hemorrhaging woman and dead
child and crucified Messiah, Mark suggests that physical torment and spiritual
anguish, flesh and spirit (14:38), are different dimensions of a braided whole,
which humans can alleviate but only a loving God – “Abba, Father” – can
finally restore.22 In Galilee Jesus encourages others in hopeless circumstances.
At Gethsemane he himself demonstrates the sufferer’s appropriate response:
faith, evoked by prayer, which penetrates anguish. Mark’s Jesus is God’s Son,
as obedient as he is beloved, a little child able to enter the kingdom (10:13–16),
the servant of divine sovereignty that some petitioners but none of his disciples
proves to be (9:33–37).
5. A Hostile Multitude (Mark 14:43, 48; 15:8, 11)

As Cuthbert Hamilton Turner noted nearly a century ago, Mark visualizes
“a crowd” or “multitude” as a single entity:23 a comprehensive character, as it
were. Mark refers to [ὁ] ὄχλος thirty-eight times: allowing for their compara-
tive lengths, a frequency greater than either Matthew (fifty occurrences), Luke
(forty-one), or John (twenty). Mobs are by nature volatile. Depending on their
narrative context, the connotations of ὁ ὄχλος in Mark are variable: sometimes
positive (2:13; 6:34; 7:14; 8:1 [cf. 6:34], 2, 6 [bis], 34; 9:17; 10:1; 12:37), some-
times negative (2:4; 3:9, 20, 32; 5:24b, 27; 9:14; 11:32; 12:12; 14:43; 15:8, 11, 15),
sometimes neutral or ambivalent (4:1 [bis], 36; 5:21, 30, 31; 6:45; 7:17, 33; 9:15,
25; 10:46; 11:18; 12:41).24 The occasionally sinister quality of ὁ ὄχλος in Mark is
impressive: “the crowd” impedes the progress of both Jesus (1:45 [unidentified,
but implied]) and of those in desperate straits (2:4; 5:24b, 27, 38 [ὁ θόρυβος];
22 Cf. Paul’s similar contextualization of the cry, “abba, Father,” in Rom 8:15 and Gal 4:6.
23 J. K. Elliott, ed., The Language and Style of Mark’s Gospel: An Edition of C. H. Turner’s
“Notes on Marcan Usage” Together with Other Comparable Studies, NovTSup 71 (Leiden: Brill,
1993), 49. Turner’s “notes” were originally published in JTS (1924–1927). In only one instance
(Mark 10:1) does the plural ὄχλοι occur. When ὁ ὄχλος is modified, it is usually by the adjective
πολύς (5:21, 24; 6:34; 8:1; 9:14; 12:37), alternatively by πλεῖστος (4:1) and ἱκανός (10:46). The
idiom πᾶς ὁ ὄχλος occurs four times (2:23; 4:1; 9:15; 11:18).
24 Marcus (Mark, 2:1036–37) expresses such mystification at the crowd’s turn against
Jesus in 15:1–15 that he imports “the influence of malignant spirits” to explain it. Mark 15 says
nothing of this, but the evangelist has planted plenty of clues that the multitudes cannot be
trusted to safeguard Jesus’s well-being.
10:48 [οἱ πολλοί]), can be aligned with those who radically misunderstand him
(3:32 [cf. 3:21]), are fractious (9:14), and intimidating to those who mean Jesus
harm (11:32; 12:12). Mark’s narrative displays a pronounced dynamic of Jesus’s
attempt to withdraw and the multitude’s prevention of that endeavor (1:35–36,
45; 4:35–36; 6:30–33; 6:45, 53–55; 7:24, 36), however well-intentioned its
members may be. At two points early in Jesus’s ministry, the crowd is so oppres-
sive that it prevents Jesus from eating (3:20) and threatens to crush him (3:9) –
both characterizations absent from Matthew and Luke’s parallel passages. These
portents are fully realized in Mark’s passion narrative, all of whose references to
ὁ ὄχλος are to parties hostile to Jesus (15:8, 15), some in overt collusion with the
chief priests (14:43; 15:11). More than in any other Gospel,25 the multitude in
Mark return, with malice, to haunt Jesus’s final hours.
6. Jesus and Peter on Trial (Mark 14:53–72)

Even more conspicuously than in the tales of Jairus’s daughter (5:21–24a + 5:35–
43) and the hemorrhaging woman (5:24b–34), the interrogations of Jesus and
Peter at the high priest’s court comprise a traditional intercalation26 in which
the principal figures double each other for maximum narrative impact. Unlike
the pericopae we have previously examined, here we encounter, not the reminis-
cence of an event from earlier in Jesus’s ministry, but rather an immediately
juxtaposed, intricately entwined composite of Doppelgängers within the passion
narrative itself. (See Table 5.)
That there were not one but two trials on the night of Jesus’s arraignment has
become a commonplace in Markan interpretation. However, only after analyzing
the elements of both legends in the Second Gospel can one appreciate just how
subtly they have been recounted – quite an accomplishment for an evangelist
who, in the estimate of the twentieth century’s most celebrated New Testament
exegete, “is not sufficiently master of his material to be able to venture on a sys-
tematic construction himself.”27 The Doppelgängers in 14:53–72 spill over one
25 Matthew (26:47; 27:15, 20, 24) and Luke (22:6, 47a; 23:4) generally follow Mark’s
lead. Luke tempers the crowd’s cruelty by shifting from ὁ ὄχλος to ὁ λάος, incited by their
leaders (23:5, 13, 14; see also Matt 27:1, 25, 64) and by uniquely reporting the multitude’s guilty
remorse at Jesus’s death (Luke 23:48; cf. v. 27). None of John’s twenty references to ὁ ὄχλος
(5:13; 6:2, 5, 22, 24; 7:12 [bis], 20, 31, 32, 40, 43, 49; 11:42; 12:9, 12, 17, 18, 29, 34) occurs in that
evangelist’s passion narrative: one (12:9) precedes Jesus’s entry to Jerusalem, which thrice notes
“the multitude’s” presence (12:12, 17, 18); the remaining and final two uses of ὁ ὄχλος occur in
that pericope’s aftermath (12:29, 34).
26 For a catalogue of Mark’s other intercalations, see Black, Mark, 88. Luke suggests either
an originally separate sequencing of Peter’s nocturnal denials (22:54–62) and Jesus’s diurnal
trial (22:66–71) or a deliberate disruption of Mark’s interpolation of the latter into the former.
27 R. Bultmann, History of the Synoptic Tradition, trans. J. Marsh, rev. ed. (Oxford: Basil
Blackwell, 1968), 350. So symmetrical is the structuring of these intercalated narratives that
my agnosticism about the degree of Markan redactional activity has become duly chastened
Narrative Element Interrogation of Jesus Interrogation of Peter
(14:55–65) (14:53–54 + 66–72)
1. Settings The council chamber (53) The council courtyard (54)
2. The defendants Jesus (55–65) Peter (53–54 + 66–72)
3. Proximity of Within striking distance “at a distance … with the guards” by
accusers (cf. 65) a fireside (54); later, backing away to
the forecourt (68b)
4. Interrogators Chief priests and the high One of the high priest’s maids, other
priest (55a) bystanders (66, 69, 70b)
5. Repeated Impeachable testimony “You, too, were with the Nazarene,
accusations (55b–56); divergent charges Jesus” (67b); “This is one of them”
regarding the temple’s de- (69)
struction (57–59)
6. Defendants’ Silence (60–61b) “I don’t know or understand what
responses you are saying” (68a); “But again he
denied it” (70a)
7. Direct con- “You are the Christ, the Son “Absolutely, you are one of them, for
frontation of of the Blessed” (61b) you are a Galilean” (70b)
defendants
8. The defen- “I am, and you will see the “I don’t know this man [τὸν
dants’ pleas Son of Man [τὸν υἱὸν τοῦ ἄνθρωπον] you are talking about”
ἀνθρώπου]” (62) (71b)
9. Curses “You have heard the blas- “He began to curse and to swear”
phemy” (64a) (71a)
10. Verdicts The death penalty (64bc) “And right then, for the second time,
a cock crowed” (72a)
11. Prophetic [Implied by 8:31; 9:31; “And Peter remembered the thing
fulfillments 10:33–34] Jesus had said to him” (72b)
12. The defendants’ [None narrated] “And he broke down (? [ἐπιβαλών])
responses and burst into tears” (72c)
13. The accusers’ Abuse: spitting, blindfold- [None narrated]
responses ing, repeated beatings,
taunts to “prophesy” (65)
Table 5: Two trials on the night of Jesus’s arrest
another in simultaneous waves: inside versus outside, Jesus versus Peter, the high
priest versus his maid, the entire Sanhedrin versus a gaggle of bystanders, false
charges versus accurate identifications, silence versus sputtering, truth-telling
versus flagrant lies, Jesus’s alleged cursing of God versus Peter’s cursing (whether
of his questioners, Jesus, or himself is unclear),28 wild abuse versus tacit dismiss-
(The Disciples according to Mark: Markan Redaction in Current Debate, 2nd ed. [Grand Rapids,
MI: Eerdmans, 2012]). To think that all of these coincidences lie only at the traditional level,
untouched by an authorial hand, is, for me if not for Humpty Dumpty, one thing too impossible
to believe before breakfast.
28 See H. Merkel, “Peter’s Curse,” in The Trial of Jesus: Cambridge Studies in Honour of
al. As Mark tells these stories, each turns the other inside out: under enormous
pressure Jesus stands fast, acknowledging his identity for the first and only time
in this Gospel at the precise instant that will seal his death warrant (14:62–64;
cf. 8:29–30, where he invokes silence of his followers regarding his messiahship).
Meanwhile, at that very moment, the principal among those disciples keeps his
distance (14:54) and actually retreats (14:68b), all the while lying through his
teeth about any association with his teacher. Jesus seizes his destiny as the Son of
Man who must suffer, while Peter, who would save his life, utterly loses it (8:35a).29
The irony is all but unbearable: at the very moment that Jesus is mocked by un-
believing abusers to prophesy (14:65), all of his prophecies about himself (8:31;
9:31; 10:33–34) and Peter and the rest of his disciples (14:29–31) flourish to their
fulfillment. This transcends cleverness. It is narrative theology at its pinnacle.
7. Pilate’s Interrogation, Sentencing, and Execution of Jesus

(Mark 15:1–5 + 16–32)
Internal to the passion narrative are some notable correspondences between
Pilate’s interrogation of Jesus (15:1–5) and its surrounding episodes. After Jesus’s
transfer to Roman jurisdiction (15:1), the prefect says to Jesus, “[So] you’re the
King of the Jews” (15:2a). That sentence’s construction in Greek is the same as in
14:61: an ironically accurate though faithless affirmation that in context may be
punctuated as a question. This is the first of five occurrences of “King of the Jews”
in Mark (see also 15:9, 12, 18, 26).30 It recalls Mark’s five references to Jesus as the
Messiah (1:1; 8:29; 9:41; 12:35; 14:61): a valid attribution, even if some who make
it, like Peter (8:29) or the high priest (14:61), cannot understand its implications.
Roman overlords, Pilate (15:2a, 9, 12) and his cohort (15:18, 26), call Jesus “King
of the Jews,” in contrast to Jesus’s coreligionists, who as insiders mock him as
“Israel’s king” (15:32). The charge of “blasphemy” (14:64) has evaporated: Pilate
would have cared nothing about Jewish religious sensibilities but would have
been interested in Jesus as a threat to the imperium (15:26). Jesus’s words to Pilate,
C. F. D. Moule, ed. E. Bammel, SBT 2/13 (London: SCM, 1970), 66–71. Matthew (26:72, 74)
builds Peter’s curse to a climax; Luke and John retain Peter’s denials but eliminate his curse.
T. Shepherd suggests another way of viewing the curses in Mark 14:53–72: “Where Peter called
on God as his witness that he was telling to truth (which he was not), the high priest utilized
his sense of God’s position and honor to call down an imprecation on Jesus’ claim (in the
Markan story also incorrect)” (“The Irony of Power in the Trial of Jesus and the Denial by
Peter – Mark 14:53–72,” in The Trial and Death of Jesus: Essays on the Passion Narrative in
Mark, ed. G. Van Oyen and T. Shepherd, CBET 45 [Leuven: Peeters, 2006], 229–45, here 234).
29 Such an exegesis may lend more gravity to Peter’s circumstances than is merited. As
Schweizer notes, none of the comments directed to him have anything to do with his religious
profession as such (Good News, 331–32). Peter caves in at the merest whisper of a potential
accusation.
30 For detailed analysis, consult F. J. Matera, The Kingship of Jesus: Composition and Theol-
ogy in Mark 15, SBLDS 66 (Chico, CA: Scholars Press, 1982).
“[So] you say” (σὺ λέγεις, 15:2b) – both more cryptic and more ironic than his
reply to the high priest (14:62a) – are his last until just before his death (15:34).
Expressing perplexity, Pilate emphatically questions the defendant. “Do you
not have nothing to answer?” (οὐκ ἀποκρίνῃ οὐδέν;): in Greek, an emphatic
double negative (15:4), which recalls the chief priest’s identical question, almost
identically articulated (14:60, οὐκ ἀπεκρίνατο οὐδέν;). With equivalent force
“Jesus no longer answered nothing” (οὐκέτι οὐδὲν ἀπέκρίθη, 15:5a; cf. 14:61:
οὐκ ἀπεκρίνατο οὐδέν). Pilate marvels (θαυμάζειν, 15:5b), as have others in
Mark (5:20; 6:6a; 12:17). Jesus’s silence before the prefect is patient of multiple
interpretations. It may have been customary for Jews in Roman custody to say
nothing to their accusers, lest their rebuttal implicate fellow Jews. If that be
the case here, then Jesus refuses to expose and incriminate the chief priests.31
Mark may also allude to Israel’s Suffering Servant (Isa 53:7 LXX, καὶ αὐτὸς διὰ
τὸ κεκακῶσθαι οὐκ ἀνοίγει τὸ στόμα … οὕτως οὐκ ἀνοίγει τὸ στόμα αὐτοῦ).
Whatever the motivation, by recalling the defendant’s silence before the chief
priest (14:61a), Mark juxtaposes Jesus’s two trials before two magistrates – one
Jewish, the other Roman – both unable to recognize the King they are judging.
Mark 15:6–32 comprises three balanced, interlocking pericopae:
A. Pilate’s sentencing of Jesus (vv. 6–15)
B. The soldiers’ abuse of Jesus (vv. 16–20)
A′. The soldiers’ execution of Jesus (vv. 21–32)32
Whether these segments constitute a final Markan intercalation is a good ques-
tion. Usually the same characters and activities of the framing pericope (A) are
interrupted by interlaminated material (B). Substantively 15:6–15 and 21–32
deviate from that pattern. Structurally, however, the component elements do
mirror one another:
– The principal theme is ironic rejection of Israel’s true yet hidden king.
– The central pericope (vv. 16–20) amplifies Jesus’s abuse by Sanhedrin (14:65).
The humiliation is rendered in greater detail; its agents are Gentiles (cf. 9:31).
– The primary agents of Jesus’s destruction are now Rome’s prefect (15:8–10,
12, 14–15) and provincial military (vv. 21–28), provoked by Jewish official-
dom (vv. 10, 11, 30) and Jerusalem’s rabble (vv. 8, 11, 13, 15, 29).
– Pilate’s mockery of Jesus as “the King of the Jews” (vv. 9, 12) foreshadows
comparable taunts at the crucifixion (vv. 26, 32).
31 E. Bammel, “The Trial before Pilate,” in idem and Moule, eds., Jesus and the Politics of His
Day, 415–51, n. b. 421–22.
32 In 15:16–39 Mark may be a turning inside-out the type-scene of a Roman triumphal
procession, which included the victorious general’s acclamation, his procession through a
captured city with trophies of conquest, and a culminating offer of religious sacrifices (Cassius
Dio, 6.23; 58.11; 64.20–21; cf. 2 Cor 2:14–15; thus, T. E. Schmidt, “Mark 15:16–32: The Cru-
cifixion Narrative and the Roman Triumphal Procession,” NTS 41 [1995]: 1–18). Although this
inversion might be reckoned a wraithlike revisiting of Mark 11:1–11, its allusions may be too
elusive to qualify.
– The release of a known, murderous bandit (vv. 7, 15: on which, more momen-
tarily) is answered in vv. 27, 29b by the innocent Jesus’s execution between a
pair of revolutionary bandits (again, more to come).
– The faux regalia in which the cohort first clothe, then undress, Jesus (vv. 17,
20a) anticipate their callous disposition of his garments after crucifixion
(v. 24).
– The savagery of this tableau intensifies from the demand for Jesus’s crucifixion
(vv. 13–14) to his physical abuse (v. 19) to the ultimate penalty, crucifixion
(vv. 24a, 25).
This segment of the passion narrative is ghost-ridden. Jesus’s trial and
sentencing by Pilate do not stand alone in this Gospel. They comprise the last
of three trials narrated in rapid succession, accompanied by Jesus’s threefold
anguish in Gethsemane (14:35–36, 39, 41a), three attempts to awaken his dis-
ciples (vv. 37–38, 40, 41b–42), and Peter’s trio of denials (vv. 68, 70a, 71). The
first trial was of Jesus by the Sanhedrin (vv. 55–65); the second, that of Peter in
the high priest’s courtyard (vv. 66–72). Each of these proceedings has blended
veracity (“You are the Christ”; “[Peter,] you are one of them”; “You are the
King of the Jews”) with mendacity (false witness; denials of discipleship; the
chief priests’ enmity). Each has fitfully escalated to its conclusion. Initially the
Sanhedrin cannot pin anything on Jesus; Peter keeps retreating until he crum-
ples; Pilate’s amazement is trumped by another convict’s release. Each trial ends
furiously, with physical abuse (14:65b; 15:15) or emotional collapse (14:72). At
every point justice is miscarried: the Son of Man goes as it is so written, but woe
betide those who collude (14:21a).
Responsibility for Jesus’s death lies finally with Pilate, who has his own spec-
tral Doppelgänger: Herod Antipas (6:14–29). Oddly, Mark opened that legend
with the comment that, on hearing of Jesus, Herod believed him a revenant:
John the Baptist, raised from the dead (vv. 14, 16). Ostensibly describing the
death warrants of two “righteous and holy” men (6:20; 15:14), both 6:14–29 and
15:1–15 are actually stories about weak authorities who bungle their objectives
while being outfoxed. The king no more wants to kill John (6:20) than the pre-
fect wants to execute Jesus: it is Pilate’s idea to release him (15:9). But their ad-
versaries (6:19, 24; 15:3, 10, 11) possess malicious wit to turn custom against
political superiors: irrevocable oaths (6:26b), a Passover privilege (15:6). The
manipulators get their way by using pawns who demand grisly deaths: Herodias’s
daughter for John’s head (6:22–25); Jerusalem’s crowds for Jesus’s crucifixion
(15:11, 14b). Neither politico gets what he wanted. Herod paints himself into
the corner of beheading John (6:26–28); Pilate suckers himself into executing
an innocent (15:15) by releasing a manifestly guilty felon back into Judea’s social
and political turmoil (v. 7).33
33 In Mark, 153–63, I have suggested that, not only 8:1–10, but also (and more immediately)
8. Barabbas (Mark 15:6–15)

Jesus’s trial before Pilate climaxes with the release of Barabbas (15:6–15), which
Mark describes as customary (vv. 6, 8). While our knowledge of provincial trial
law in this era is spotty, by the 1st c. CE Roman authorities may have reviewed
some cases among their subjects to assure just sentences and to reverse egregious
decisions (cf. 15:9–10).34 Although 15:7 does not identify a particular revolt,
Luke (13:1; Acts 5:36–37) and Josephus (B. J. 2.167–177, 228–257; A. J. 18.55–62;
20.113–124, 208–210) refer to Jewish insurrections against Rome in the early
first century. Mark characterizes Barabbas as one among other rioters (μετὰ
τῶν στασιαστῶν) who had committed murder during “the uprising” (ἐν τῇ
στάσει, Mark 15:7). The evangelist repeats, without translating, this rebel’s off-
beat Aramaic name (vv. 7, 11, 15): “Son of the Father.” By contrast, the name
“Jesus” is mentioned only once, after judgment has been pronounced (v. 15).
Twice Pilate refers to him as “the King of the Jews” in solicitous, highly ironic
questions addressed to the rabble (v. 9: in effect, “Why not seize your oppor-
tunity?”; v. 12: “Would you like to reconsider your decision?”). As previously
noted, “the crowd” (ὁ ὄχλος) in Mark, at times disposed toward Jesus (2:13;
3:32; 4:1; 8:1; 12:37), are not to be trusted. The multitudes have turned on their
leaders (11:18, 32; 12:12); in 15:11 they do the same against Jesus. Insisting on
Barabbas’s release, the crowd is even more determined that “the King of the
Jews” be crucified (vv. 13, 14b), despite the fact that Rome’s prefect, who alone
exercised authority to execute, acquits him (v. 14a). Pilate capitulates: releasing
Barabbas, he has Jesus flogged, then “hands over” (παρέδωκεν, v. 15; cf. 1:14) the
condemned to crucifixion.
Mark 15:1–32 is a weird ghost story, with Barabbas as Jesus’s Doppelgänger.
Saying and doing nothing, Jesus is but vaguely present, much talked about be-
fore being whipped and transferred for execution. He and Barabbas are opposite
subversives. Barabbas opted for violent revolution (15:7). Jesus proclaimed an
alternative kingdom structured by repentance and forgiveness (1:15; 11:25).
Barabbas has taken one life (15:6); Jesus has restored another’s (5:35–43). The
most blatant irony in 15:6–15 lies in the evangelist’s tacit contrast between one
“Son of the Father,” a convicted murderer, and another “Son” of a different
“Father” (1:9; 9:7; 13:32; 14:36 [ʾabbā]) who, as his executioner concedes, has
done no evil (15:14). “The criminal escaped; Christ was condemned” (Augus-
6:14–29 is an uncanny doublet of 6:30–44: two parallel banquets, reflecting the mores of two
different kingdoms, which culminate in either vicious murder or compassionate nourishment.
34 E. Bammel, “Die Blutherichtsbarkeit in der römische Provinz Judaä vor dem ersten
jüdischen Aufstand,” JJS 25 (1974): 39–49; Yarbro Collins, Mark, 715–17. For discussion of
the historical problems attending the Passover amnesty, consult Brown, Death of the Messiah,
2:814–20. Boring (Mark, 420) offers a trenchant argument against its historical likelihood
(cf. Josephus, A. J. 20.215); Evans (Mark 8:27–16:20, 479–80, 485–86) gives us precisely the
opposite.
tine, Tract. Ev. Jo. 31.11). “The Son of Man came not to be served but to serve
and to give his life for others’ release” (10:45). In 15:6–15 such redemption is
dramatized before the reader’s very eyes.
9. On the Via Dolorosa: An Unexpected Simon (Mark 15:21)

A condemned prisoner like Jesus was forced to carry his own patibulum
(Plutarch, Sera 9, 554A–B); the gibbet waited at the place of execution. Into the
story flits another character who will vanish as fast as he appears: a passerby
named Simon. Cyrene (Acts 6:9; 11:20; 13:1) was a city in what is now Libya.
It is hard to determine significance in the detail of Simon’s “coming in from the
country” (or “field,” ἀπ᾽ ἀγροῦ) unless (perhaps) Mark is juxtaposing a single
follower of Israel’s soon-to-be-crucified king with those who cut “leaves from
the fields” (στιβάδας κόψαντες ἐκ τῶν ἀγρῶν) while welcoming the advent of
“the kingdom of our ancestor David” (11:8–10). When Jesus entered Jerusalem,
the cry was Hosanna, “Lord, save” (11:9–10); he exits to a very different cry –
“Crucify” (15:13–14) – and the one who most obviously needs saving is Jesus
himself. Presumably, Mark’s audience would have recognized Simon’s sons
(15:21), as Matthew’s (27:32) and Luke’s (23:26) readers would not.35 The
evangelist’s introduction of another “Simon” at this point is intriguing.36 Mark
mentions no motive for the soldiers’ pressing him “to carry his cross” (15:21).
In context “his cross” refers, of course, to Jesus’s; still, after Simon Peter refused
the Son of Man’s ordained suffering and death (8:31–32), the teacher insisted
that those coming after him “take up their cross and follow me” (8:34). Sheer
coincidence? Perhaps – though it is strange that one Simon does as another
Simon was instructed but refused.37 Like Barabbas in 15:6–15, Cyrene’s Simon
is another revenant, reminding one of a key disciple who lost himself in a
terrified attempt to save himself (8:35a) with miserable consequences (14:70–
72).
35 A certain “Rufus, chosen in the Lord,” is among many at the church in Rome whom Paul
greets (Rom 16:13). It is impossible to confirm that Mark refers to the same person.
36 Given the name’s popularity in antiquity, the inclusion of many other “Simons” in Mark’s
narrative is no surprise (the Cananaean, 3:18; a brother of Jesus, 6:3; a leper, 14:3). In 15:21
timing, like context, is everything.
37 H. K. Bond rightly notes that the Cyrenian’s act is not voluntary, but compelled
(ἀγγαρεύουσιν, 15:21): “Paragon of Discipleship? Simon of Cyrene in the Markan Passion
Narrative,” in Matthew and Mark across Perspectives: Essays in Honour of Stephen C. Barton
and William R. Telford, ed. K. A. Bendoraitis and N. K. Gupta, LNTS 538 (London: Bloomsbury
T&T Clark, 2016), 18–35; so, too, H. Anderson, The Gospel of Mark, NCB (London: Marshall,
Morgan & Scott, 1976), 340. One needn’t claim that Simon the Cyrenean is the paradigm of
discipleship in Mark that only Jesus proves to be. One need only note that another Simon fades
in and out of Mark’s passion narrative at a climactic moment (probably, as Bond suggests, to
heighten the auxiliary legionaries’ ridicule of Jesus).
10. At Golgotha: “Those Who Were Crucified with Him” (Mark 15:27, 32b)38
Mark’s description of the “malefactors” (οἱ κακοῦργοι, Luke 23:32, 33, 39) with
whom Jesus is crucified has been doubly foreshadowed in this Gospel. First, they
are characterized as δύο λῃστάς: likely, political insurrectionists (freedom fight-
ers, from their viewpoint). Jesus is no such revolutionary (cf. John 18:33–40),39
but, following Jeremiah (7:11 LXX), he castigated the temple as “a bandits’ lair”
(σπήλαιον λῃστῶν, Mark 11:17c) and noted the irony that he had been arrested
ὡς ἐπὶ λῃστήν (14:48) when he could easily have been apprehended on any of
the days he was teaching in the temple (14:49a). Even more ironic is Mark’s
explicit positioning of those crucified with Jesus: “one on the right and one on
his left” (ἕνα ἐκ δεξιῶν καὶ ἕνα ἐξ εὐωνύμων αὐτοῦ, 15:27), an almost verbatim
quotation of the Zebedee brothers’ petitions to bask in Jesus’s reflected glory
(δὸς ἡμῖν ἵνα εἷς σου ἐκ δεξιῶν καὶ εἷς ἐξ ἀριστερῶν καθίσωμεν ἐν τῇ δόξῃ σου,
10:37).40 On that occasion Jesus has warned James and John that they have no
idea what they are asking (10:38; cf. 10:36: “We want you to do for us whatever
we ask of you”), that the cup he must drink will someday be theirs, too (10:39b),
even though he does not want it (14:36) and they are fools to think that they
do (10:38b–39a). For Jesus, as for all others, events unfold as they have been
divinely prepared (ἀλλ᾽ οἷς ἡτοίμασται, 10:40).
11. The Taunt: “Others He Saved; Himself He Cannot Save” (Mark 15:31)

Again returning to the passion narrative after multiple wrangles (2:6, 16; 3:22;
7:1, 5; 9:14; 11:18, 27; 12:38; 14:1, 10; cf. 8:31; 10:33) with Israel’s king whom
they cannot recognize (cf. 4:12a), the chief priests and scribes ridicule the cru-
cified Jesus in precisely those terms he has accepted as the Son of Man’s destiny:
“not to be served but to serve and to give his life for the sake of many” (10:45).41
Once more: “Whoever would save his life would lose it” (8:35a). Like the high
priest and Pilate, the chief priests and scribes unwittingly affirm faith in Jesus
with blind ignorance and utter faithlessness.
12. Waiting for Elijah (Mark 15:35–36)

Early in the Gospel Jesus warned listeners, “Watch what you hear” (4:24a).
Usually they have failed to do so (4:12; 8:14–21). So it goes to the end. Quoting
38 Although I choose not to consider them here, Marcus (Mark, 2:1046) tabulates items that
constitute doublets in Mark’s description of Jesus’s crucifixion (15:23–24, 29–30, 34–36b) and
death (15:25, 31–32, 36a, 37).
39 Only Matthew (27:38, 44) follows Mark in identifying the other victims at this crucifixion
as οἱ λῃσταί.
40 In 20:21 and 27:38, Matthew intensifies the verbal coincidence with Mark 15:27: εἷς ἐκ
δεξιῶν σου καὶ εἷς ἐξ εὐωνύμων σου. For pointing this out to me, I thank Dale Allison.
41 For an acute analysis of Jesus’s death from this vantage point, see H. K. Bond, “A Fitting
End? Self-Denial and a Slave’s Death in Mark’s Life of Jesus,” NTS 65/4 (2019): 425–42.
Psalm 22 Jesus cries, ελωι ελωι, “My God, my God”; what some in his audience
hear is Ἐλίας (cf. Matt 27:46). Perhaps extrapolating from 2 Kgs 2:9–12 by way
of Mal 3:5–6 and Sir 48, some Jewish traditions envisioned Elijah as protector
of the righteous in distress.42 A sponge is sopped with vinegar, stuck on a stick,
and offered to Jesus on the chance that Elijah may return to remove him from
the cross (Mark 15:36). The irony of this act is so multilayered that it sets one’s
head spinning. (a) Before crucifixion Jesus refused refreshment (v. 23). Why
would he accept this now? (b) The previous offering was probably a painkiller;
this is vinegary wine (τὸ ὄξος), extended on a cane (ὁ κάλαμος) of the sort the
soldiers used to club him (v. 19). (c) The runner fulfills scripture by unwittingly
mimicking another lament (Ps 69:21). (d) That Mark intends this action to be
taken as torment, not an errand of mercy, is suggested by the context, coupled
with 8:11–12: a faithless generation seeks a sign – even one so gruesome as the
spectacular rescue of a tortured innocent. “Truly I tell you, no sign will be given
to this generation” (8:12b). (e) Mark’s listeners know that no sign is forthcoming,
because in John the Baptist Elijah already has returned “and they did to him
whatever they pleased” (9:13): namely, decapitation (6:27–28). (f ) During his life
very few have understood Jesus. At his death still others perpetuate that stupidity.
13. A Third Rip / A Third Pronouncement (Mark 15:38–39)

As practically all modern commentators acknowledge, in Mark Jesus’s death
recapitulates earlier events in his life: his baptism (1:9–11), transfiguration
(9:2–8), and the high priest’s verdict (14:62–63). Beyond these evident points
of resonance, all of the details in Mark 15:38–39 are so exegetically controver-
sial43 that any hope of resolving them here is both futile and, for my purposes,
irrelevant. Of consequence are the particular actions and words that lie in the
immediate aftermath of Jesus’s death (15:37). They stand among a series of
climatic ruptures –
– the rending (σχιζομένου) of the heavens44 at Jesus’s baptism (1:10), which
mirrors
– the tearing (διαρρήξας) of the high priest’s tunic (14:63), as well as
42 Unfortunately for our purposes, regard for Elijah as vigilant protector of the innocent and
guardian in evil times cannot be confidently documented until the Talmudic era (e. g., b. ‘Abod.
Zar. 18b; b. Šabb. 33b; b. B. Meṣ 84a). See L. Ginzberg, The Legends of the Jews, trans. H. Szold
and P. Radin, repr., 2 vols. (Philadelphia: Jewish Publication Society, 2003), 2:1000–23.
43 For detailed discussion, see Black, Mark, 330–33.
44 If Mark knew that the Herodian temple was draped by several curtains, and if he knew
that the tapestried details of its outermost drapery “portrayed a panorama of the heavens” (as
Josephus describes in B. J. 5.207–214), then 15:38, like 1:10, 13:24–25, and 15:33, might allude
to astral disturbances of one or another sort (thus, D. Ulansey, “The Heavenly Veil Torn: Mark’s
Cosmic Inclusio,” JBL 110 [1991]: 123–25). This, however, pitches us into one of the many
thorny features of Mark 15:33–39, which cannot be resolved here (if ever).
– a complete split (ἐσχίσθη) of the temple’s curtain (15:38), unseen by all save
Mark’s reader –
which are conjoined with assertions about Jesus’s identity:
– “You are my Son, the beloved, in whom I take delight” (the bat-qol in 1:11,
reiterated with an injunction at the transfiguration [9:7]: “This is my son, the
beloved: listen to him”);
– “I am [the Christ, the Son of the Blessed]” (Jesus’s acceptance of the high
priest’s quizzical affirmation: 14:61b–62a);
– “Truly this man was the Son of God” (the centurion’s response to Jesus’s
death: 15:39).45
To listeners primed for scrupulous observance of folklore’s rule of three (cf.
14:30, 41, 72), one would anticipate a third bat-qol 15:33–39, to close the circuit
opened at 1:11 and continued at 9:7. That expectation is frustrated: in answer
to the crucified messiah’s cri de coeur (v. 34), there is (first) silence from heaven,
(second) a supernatural event seen by the reader alone (v. 38), and (third) a
truthful testimony by the least likely human witness, based on evidence most
daft (v. 39; cf. 1 Cor 1:23).
14. The Ministering Women (Mark 15:40–41)

Unlike Luke, who early on informs his readers of the presence of women among
Jesus’s Galilean entourage (8:1–3), Mark withholds this information as a sur-
prise until the narration of Jesus’s death and resurrection. Unlike the mother of
Jesus and other women in John’s narrative, who stand by the cross of the dying
Jesus (John 19:25), his female cohort in Mark have beheld the spectacle from
afar (ἀπὸ μακρόθεν, Mark 15:40).46 Yet there is no question that they are true
disciples: they “followed him” (ἠκολούθουν αὐτῷ), as expected of all of Jesus’s
disciples (1:18; 2:14–15; 6:1; 8:34; 10:52);47 many of them (ἄλλαι πολλαί) did
so all the way to Jerusalem (15:41); they persevered with their teacher longer
45 The intent of the centurion’s statement – whether it be a treasonous affirmation of faith by

one who has pledged fealty to Caesar Augustus as divi filius or the last sarcastic nail driven into an
ironic coffin – may be left open-ended. Sweat’s assessment is well tempered: “God continues to
work through Jesus’ opponents to the very end, prompting even the person who could have been
the greatest ‘outsider’ in the passion narrative to confess Jesus’ identity at this crucial point. Yet
this revelation in concealed, as the ambiguity of the centurion’s words leave open the possibility
that his proclamation is in line with the other mockers at the cross. … God is hidden but active,
revealing a mystery at the cross that is not understood” (Theological Role of Paradox, 143–44).
46 Simon Peter also followed Jesus ἀπὸ μακρόθεν into the high priest’s courtyard (14:54): a
vague suggestion that the women’s staying power may ultimately prove no greater than his.
47 The standard treatment is E. Best, Following Jesus: Discipleship in the Gospel of Mark,
JSNTSup 4 (Sheffield: JSOT Press, 1981). Best never identifies the women in 1:29–31, 15:40–41,
or 16:1–8 as Jesus’s disciples, though in one essay (“Mark’s Use of the Twelve”) he acknowledges
that “15:40 f. (the women) implies the existence of a wider group [of disciples] than the twelve”
than any of the Twelve, to the point of witnessing his burial (15:47). They are
shades of another woman in Mark: like Peter’s mother-in-law, they ministered to
him (διηκόνουν αὐτῷ, 15:41; cf. 1:31). Besides these women, the only figures de-
scribed by Mark as ministering to Jesus – who defines the Son of Man as the one
who ministers (διακονῆσαι, 10:45) – are the angels in the wilderness, following
his satanic temptation (1:13). Two of the women at the crucifixion are named
Mary: Magdalene, and the mother of James the younger and of Joses (15:40).
Are they revenants of Jesus’s mother, named as Mary only once in Mark (6:3)? Is
the other Mary in 15:40, mother of James and Joses, in fact, Jesus’s own mother?
Probably not: if she were, why would not Mark have identified her as Jesus’s
mother? Moreover, these women followed him while he was in Galilee (15:41).
Mark has made no such claim for Jesus’s own mother and, indeed, has cast doubt
on how well she understood her son (3:21, 31).48 For the present study, precise
identification is immaterial. What is important is Mark’s gathering, at his con-
clusion, of precursory threads.
15. Joseph of Arimathea (Mark 15:42–47)

From out of nowhere also appears Joseph49 of Arimathea, who does for Jesus’s
body what John’s disciples did for their teacher’s: properly inter it in a tomb
(6:29). Beyond that plain yet signal observation, there are four, perhaps five,
other shadows of things past in this Gospel. First, the corpse of neither John nor
Jesus was buried by members of his family. Second, and most quicksilverish,
Joseph is identified as “a councilor of good standing” (εὐσχήμων βουλευτής,
15:42): an identification and modifier appearing nowhere else in Mark. On
which council he sat, Mark does not say. Unless the evangelist was overcome by
his well-known hyperbole, Joseph appears not to have been numbered among
the Sanhedrin, all of whose members concurred with the high priest’s death
sentence (14:64b; cf. 14:55, ὅλον τὸ συνέδριον).50 Third, Joseph was “awaiting
(Disciples and Discipleship: Studies in the Gospel according to Mark [Edinburgh: T&T Clark,
1986], 157).
48 See also R. T. France, The Gospel of Mark: A Commentary on the Greek Text, NIGTC
(Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans; Carlisle: Paternoster, 2002), 664; cf. W. C. Placher, Mark, Belief
(Louisville, KY: Westminster John Knox, 2010), 237.
49 Though tempted, one cannot argue that this Joseph does for Jesus what another – his
father – might have done for his dead son. Jesus is identified as “the son of Mary” in 6:3. Mark
is the only Gospel in which Jesus’s father is never named.
50 Brown’s argument that Simon “was a distinguished member of the Sanhedrin” lacks con-
viction (Death of the Messiah, 2:1214). As Brown himself notes (2:1213), ἡ βουλή could refer
to the council of any city or town. If Mark had intended to identify Simon as a Sanhedrinist,
why did he not say so? Yarbro Collins (Mark, 777) notes that the wording is sufficiently am-
biguous to allow for Joseph’s seat on an Arimathean council; D. E. Nineham (The Gospel of St
Mark, Pelican Gospel Commentaries [Baltimore, MD: Penguin, 1963], 434) opines that Mark’s
audience may not have taken εὐσχήμων βουλευτής “to mean any more than a man of high
the kingdom of God” (15:43) – making him the only figure, apart from Jesus, of
whom such is said in Mark. Fourth, Joseph “dared” (τολμήσας) to petition Pilate
for the body of Jesus (15:43). After Jesus’s riposte to a scribe “not far from God’s
kingdom,” no one dared (ἐτόλμα) further questioning of Jesus in the temple
(12:34b). The Twelve in Mark dare nothing; Jesus calls them cowards (δειλοί,
4:40).51 Fifth, Mark mentions twice in 15:46 that Joseph wrapped Jesus’s corpse
in a σινδών, linen fabric used as a winding sheet. As far as funerary rites go,
there’s nothing exceptional in that.52 However, apart from the Matthean (27:59)
and Lukan parallels (23:53), the only other occurrence of ἡ σινδών in the NT is
in Mark 14:51–52: the mysterious tale of the young man who flees naked on the
night of Jesus’s arrest, leaving only a tunic in his would-be captor’s clutches.53
16. A Young Man in the Empty Tomb (Mark 16:5–7)

The last of the revenants in this passion narrative is, by Mark’s own account,
flabbergasting (ἐξεθαμβήθησαν): “a young man [νεανίσκος], seated on the right
[καθήμενον ἐν τοῖς δεξιοῖς], wrapped [περιβεβλημένον] in a white robe,” who
proclaims to three women – whose attempt to embalm a body was preempted by
yet another woman (14:8) – that Jesus has been raised from death and, as prom-
ised, will meet Peter and the disciples in Galilee (16:5–7; cf. 14:28). The other
evangelists’ interpretation of this herald at the empty tomb is surely correct: this
is an interpreting angel (Matt 28:2, 5; Luke 24:23; John 20:12; cf. Dan 7:15–18;
8:15–26; 9:21; 10:2–14; 1 Macc 3:26, 33; Josephus, A. J. 5.276–284), whose accou-
trements are traditionally white (Dan 7:9; 2 Macc 11:8–10; Acts 1:10; Rev 1:14;
2:17; 3:4–5, 18; 4:4; 6:2, 11; 7:9, 13; 14:14; 19:11, 14; 20:11). One wonders why
Mark does not so identify him. Elsewhere he easily speaks of angels on earth
(1:13) or in heaven (8:38; 12:25; 13:27, 32). Eerily, the figure who confronts
official standing” (so also Schweizer, Good News, 362). With E. S. Malbon I agree that Mark
depicts both Joseph and Jairus the ἀρχισυνάγωγος (Mark 5:22, 35–36, 38) as men of stature
who part company from the religious establishment (“The Jewish Leaders in the Gospel of
Mark: A Literary Study of Markan Characterization,” JBL 108 [1989]: 259–81). One might also
add that both are also associated with Markan death-scenes (cf. 5:35–43).
51 More so than many patristic interpreters John Chrysostom expatiates on Joseph’s cour-
ageousness (Hom. Matt. 88.27 [NPNF1 10:522]).
52 B. R. McKane, Roll Back the Stone: Death and Burial in the World of Jesus (Harrisburg,
PA: Trinity Press International, 2003).
53 Yarbro Collins (Mark, 778) develops this detail: “Whereas the young man escaped death
by fleeing at the time of his arrest and shamefully leaving the σινδών behind, Jesus did not
flee when arrested, but endured humiliation, suffering, and death, so that, at the end of his
ordeal, his body was wrapped in a σινδών.” To fashion such a pinpoint contrast, Yarbro Collins
atypically ventures beyond the textual evidence: while, in context, κρατοῦσιν (14:51) may well
imply official “arrest,” Mark 14:51–52 says nothing to the effect that the young man’s life was in
jeopardy. Hooker’s formulation (Gospel according to Saint Mark, 353) is more accurate: “Jesus
dies alone, and it is he who is wrapped in a ‘linen cloth’ (σινδών) in 15:46!”
the women seems a doubled proxy, both for the Gospel’s only other νεανίσκος
περιβεβλημένος – the strange fugitive in Mark 14:51–5254 – and the Gospel’s
only other figure in white: the transfigured Jesus (9:3), who sits at the right hand
of David’s Lord (κάθου ἐκ δεξιῶν μου, 12:36c; cf. 14:62; Ps 110:1) and who will
come as the Son of Man seated at the right hand of Power (ἐκ δεξιῶν καθήμενον
τῆς δυνάμεως, 14:62c). Mind you: I no more suggest that the risen Christ should
be identified with or considered symbolic of either the streaker in 14:51–52 or
the young man at the tomb, or that the two unnamed figures are identical, than
I regard Herod and Pilate as one and the same.55 I do wonder if the visitant
whom the women encounter is a kind of Doppeltdoppelgänger. Were he so, that
would be no more bizarre than the rest of the doubles swirling throughout this
unsettling Gospel’s passion narrative.
B. Analyzing the Analysis
What shall we say of these things? Has the second evangelist proved a more so-
phisticated narrator than he has often been credited? Or have my gentle readers
been subjected to overinterpretation by a doddering reader whose response has
run amok? I submit that, if only fifty percent of my exegesis were accepted, the
listeners of Mark 14–16 would demonstrably remain in the hands of a masterly
storyteller. Appreciation of that possibility has been inhibited by the usual ques-
tions that have generated modern commentary on the Markan passion narra-
tive: its historicity, the degree to which the story has been informed by Jewish
scripture, and attempted reconstructions of a pre-Markan passion narrative.56
All these questions are reasonable and important. All, however, are deeply con-
troversial for the simple if frustrating reason that we have neither the tools nor
54 Yarbro Collins further notes that only two figures in Mark are “seized”: Jesus in 14:46
(καὶ ἐκράτησαν αὐτόν) and the young man in 14:51–52 (καὶ κρατοῦσιν αὐτόν): “Mysteries
in the Gospel of Mark,” in Mighty Minorities? Minorities in Early Christianity – Positions and
Strategies: Essays in Honour of Jacob Jervell on His 70th Birthday, 21 May 1995, ed. D. Hellholm,
H. Moxnes, and T. K. Seim (Oslo: Scandinavian University Press, 1995), 11–23 (n. b. 19 n. 15).
If pressed, I am inclined to consider Mark 14:51–52 as an intensified, albeit baffling, depiction
of the disciples’ scattered panic (Mark, 300; cf. H. Fleddermann, “The Flight of a Naked Young
Man,” CBQ 41 [1979]: 412–18) – but, to be frank, I really do not know.
55 Moloney, Gospel of Mark, 345, is able to go a step farther than I am comfortable in taking:
“[God’s messenger in 16:5–6] recalls the parable on [sic] the disciples who abandoned their
crucified Messiah (14:51–52). As God has transformed the death of Jesus by raising him from
the dead, discipleship may be reestablished and nakedness covered.” On the other side, Brown
(Death of the Messiah, 1:303) is on to something in his exegesis of 14:51–52: “Here with ‘the
last disciple’ the irony is even more biting. In Mark 10:28 Peter described to Jesus a model of
discipleship that Jesus praised: ‘We have left all things and followed you.’ This young man has
literally left all things to flee from Jesus” (emphasis added).
56 For critical summaries of the stati quaestioni, consult Brown, Death of the Messiah,
1:13–57; Yarbro Collins, Mark, 621–39; Marcus, Mark, 2:923–31.
the lumber with which to construct their answers – as the most honest of our
expert carpenters invariably concede. The majority of scholars concur that,
however stylized their presentation, the Gospels’ accounts of Jesus’s final days
have their basis in fact: a Roman prefect authorized Jesus’s crucifixion, likely in
collusion with some of his politically influential coreligionists. Jesus’s earliest
followers tried to make sense of that occurrence with the only practical resource
available to them: the synagogue Bible.57 That they waited forty years after the
facts for someone to pull things together defies common sense: surely the earliest
Christians told and retold the story of Jesus’s death, as well as the events imme-
diately preceding and following, before Mark committed them to writing.
In the details, however, lurk the devils. Some of our best evidence for the
particulars of first-century Jewish jurisprudence and imperial protocols are
embedded in the Gospels themselves, which instantly sucks us into circular rea-
soning. Corroborative, contemporaneous evidence is spotty. Josephus’s reports
and Mishnaic codification are too late, too equivocal, or too tendentious to serve
as adequate controls. Likewise, the scriptural substructure of Mark’s passion
narrative is contested. In my view only seven (or eight) biblical quotations or
allusions in Mark 14–16 are incontrovertible (Table 6).58
Six decades of reconstructed pre-Markan passion narratives have led me to
conclude that this endeavor, undeniably erudite in their executions, is a mug’s
game. Commentators swing between the poles of Rudolf Pesch, who contended
that the evangelist adopted, with little or no editing, a preexisting narrative
embracing everything from Mark 8:27 through 16:8,59 and “the Perrin school,”
57 See M. Goodacre, “Scripturalization in Mark’s Crucifixion Narrative,” in Van Oyen and

Shepherd, Trial and Death of Jesus, 33–47. Overall B. M. F. van Iersel’s view of scripture in Mark
rings true to me: “reference and allusions to the Old Testament are not used to demonstrate
the fulfillment of the promise or even the credibility of a specific event or of what the Jesus
movement stands for. Their function is … [to] give the story an Old Testament colouring, and
thereby visualize the continuity between the story of Jesus and the stories and prophecies of the
Old Testament” (Mark: A Reader-Response Commentary, trans. W. H. Bisscheroux, JSNTSup
164 [Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 1998], 440).
58 Mine is a conservative reckoning. Cf. J. Marcus, The Way of the Lord: Christological Ex-
egesis of the Old Testament in the Gospel of Mark (Louisville, KY: Westminster John Knox Press,
1992), 157, 174–75, 189, which postulates a far more expansive range of scriptural allusions:
Mark 14:1 || Ps 10:7–8; Mark 14:10–11, 18, 21, 41–42, 44; 15:1, 10, 15 || Isa 53:6, 12 || Ps 41:9;
Mark 14:24–26, 28 || Isa 53:12 || Zech 9:11; 13:7–9; 14:4, 9; Mark 14:34 || Ps 42:5, 11; 43:5;
Mark 14:41 || Ps 140:8; Mark 14:55 || Ps 37:32; Mark 14:57 || Ps 27:12; 35:11; Mark 14:61, 65;
15:4–5, 39 || Ps 35:13–15 || Isa 50:6; 52:15; 53:7; Mark 15:6–15 || Isa 53:6, 12; Mark 15:30–31
|| Ps 22:8; Mark 15:32 || Ps 22:6; Mark 15:40 || Ps 28:11. That the Markan passion narrative
was colored by confluent streams from Zechariah 9–14, Daniel 7, and psalms of the righteous
sufferer (perhaps also Deutero-Isaiah’s servant songs) is clear enough. The question is whether
discrete narrative details – “the Mount of Olives,” “spitting and slapping,” “looking on at a
distance” – merely coincide with detached biblical phrases. A further question: even if such
coincidences were more than merely coincidental, how confidently may they be sorted into
pre-Markan and Markan piles (Marcus, Way of the Lord, 175–79)?
59 Das Markusevangelium, 2nd ed., 2 vols., HTKNT 2 (Freiburg: Herder, 1980), 2:1–27.
14:27 Zech 13:7 πατάξω τὸν ποιμένα, καὶ τὰ πρόβατα διασκορπισθήσονται

14:62 Ps 110:1; Dan 7:13 ὄψεσθε τὸν υἱὸν τοῦ ἀνθρώπου ἐκ δεξιῶν καθήμενον τῆς
δυνάμεως … ἐρχόμενον μετὰ τῶν νεφελῶν τοῦ οὐρανοῦ
15:24 Ps 22:18 διαμερίζονται τὰ ἱμάτια … βάλλοντες κλῆρον ἐπ᾽ αὐτά
15:29 Ps 22:7/109:25 κινοῦντες τὰς κεφαλάς
15:34 Ps 22:1 ὁ θεός μου ὁ θεός μου, εἰς τί ἐγκατέλιπές με;
15:36 Ps 69:21 ὄξους … ἐπότιζεν
Table 6: Biblical quotations or allusions in Mark 14–16
whose exponents argued that Mark used next to no tradition but fabricated
14:1–16:8 by himself.60 Between these extremes Marion Soards tabulated thirty-
four scholars’ meticulous reconstructions of pre-Markan tradition.61 Raymond
Brown summarized the result: “not only are the reconstructions different, but
there is scarcely one verse that all would assign to the same kind of source or
tradition. … [N]one [of these reconstructions] has won wide, enduring agree-
ment.”62 Compared with the historical and traditionsgeschichtlich enterprises
that have long preoccupied our study of Mark 14–16, the inquiry presented in
this essay has the merit, at least, of reference to a stable text, available to all, on
whose interpretation we may agree to disagree.
That said, I leave my own analysis discontent.63 To pose my dubiety in the
sharpest terms: where, in ancient narratives of a figure’s death, does one en-
counter a phenomenon like that which I have descried in Mark’s passion
60 W. H. Kelber, ed., The Passion in Mark: Studies on Mark 14–16 (Philadelphia: Fortress,
1976).
61 “Appendix IX: The Question of a PreMarcan Passion Narrative,” in Brown, Death of the
Messiah, 2:1492–1524.
62 Death of the Messiah, 1:55.
63 I would be reassured if premodern commentators noted the literary phenomenon
I have described. Perhaps some do, and I have yet to discover them. Of all the Gospels Mark
received least attention in the patristic and middle ages. The issue preoccupying most of them
was reconciling discrepant details among four diverse passion narratives. Thus, Chrysostom
wrestles with Luke’s story of the repentant bandit (23:40) and comments by Matthew (27:44)
and Mark (15:32) that Jesus’s fellow victims mocked him. The problem is soluble: both began
badly; upon witnessing the events described in Matthew 27:51–53, the penitent “recognized
the crucified One and acknowledged his kingdom” (Paralyt. 3 [NPNF1 9:124]). Augustine (Cons.
3.21.58 [NPNF1 6:207–8]) reconciles Matthew 27:55–56 || Mark 15:40 with John 19:25 by a
simple expedient: the women shifted their locations. How many angels awaited the women at
the empty tomb? Two (Luke 24:4; John 20:12). Matthew reports one at the entrance (28:2);
Mark, another inside (16:5; Augustine, Cons. 3.24.63 [NPNF1 6:209–20]). Albertus Magnus
(ca. 1193–1280), a scriptural concordance incarnate, tended to retrieve verbal and conceptual
parallels from the OT, not from within Mark itself (S. C. A. Borgnet, ed., B. Alberti Magni Opera
omnia, 38 vols. [Paris: L. Vivès, 1890–1899], 21:687–735). In modern scholarship D. C. Allison,
Jr. has identified phenomena in the First Gospel similar to what I detect in the Second (“Fore-
shadowing the Passion,” in idem, Studies in Matthew: Interpretation Past and Present [Grand
Rapids, MI: Baker Academic, 2005], 217–36).
narrative? Such would be a salutary curb on the imagination. I am no expert in

either classical or Hellenistic Jewish literature and welcome needful corrections
by those who are. To the best of my limited knowledge, I have yet to discover
exact analogues for the peculiar way in which Mark relates Jesus’s last days and
hours. The primary sources are extensive; my space is limited. Only a half-dozen
among oft-cited parallels may here be called as witnesses.
1. The Death of Socrates

In four dialogues – Euthyphro, Apology, Crito, and Phaedo – Plato (ca. 425–
347 BCE) details the last days of Socrates. Since none of the Platonic dialogues
presents a βίος of its principal figure, any comparison with Mark is bound to
be inapt. Still, these works present a composite portrait of Socrates that jibes
with his exitus: the proper understanding of piety (τὸ ὅσιον) looms large in both
the Euthyphro (4b–16a) and the Apology (34c–35d); in both Meletus recurs as
a dim though dangerous prosecutor (Euthyphr. 2b; Apol. 25d–26a). The Crito
probes a different issue (contractual obedience to an unjust law) with a different
interlocutor (a wealthy, well-respected friend); the Phaedo, yet another subject
(the soul’s immortality) addressed to fellow-philosophers. All of these dialogues
unfold in Plato’s usual argumentative fashion (τὸ ἔλεγχος; ἡ διάλεξις) with the
condemned Socrates well in control of the proceedings. None of them presents
Mark’s flitting phantoms or Doppelgängers. The same may be said of Xenophon’s
Memorabilia (ca. 370 BCE), which ends with unadulterated encomium: “How
then, could a man die more nobly? … To me he seemed to be all that a truly good
and happy man must be” (4.8.3, 11).64
2. Hellenistic Jewish Martyrs (2nd c. BCE – 2nd c. CE)

Often compared with the Gospels’ passion narratives are legends of pious Jews
martyred for their obedience to God’s law:65 Daniel, Shadrach, Meshach, Abed-
64 Trans. E. C. Marchant and O. J. Todd, Xenophon, vol. 4: Memorabilia, Oeconomicus,
Symposium, Apology, rev. J. Henderson, LCL 168 (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press,
2013), 371, 377. For general comparison of this work with Mark’s Gospel, see W. T. Shiner,
Follow Me! Disciples in Markan Rhetoric, SBLDS 145 (Atlanta: Scholars, 1995). Lest the Socratic
exuent, whether in Plato or Xenophon, be assumed typical of death scenes for memorable fig-
ures, we do well to remember that the Lives of Aesop (ca. 1st c. CE), of Homer (ca. late 3rd c. CE),
and of Alexander (ca. early 4th c. CE) all end ignominiously for their estimable protagonists. See
T. Hägg, The Art of Biography in Antiquity (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2012),
99–147.
65 See, for instance, M. E. Vines, “The ‘Trial Scene’ Chronotype in Mark and the Jewish
Novel,” in Van Oyen and Shepherd, The Trial and Death of Jesus, 189–203; K. S. O’Brien, “In-
nocence and Guilt: Apologetic, Martyr Stories, and Allusion in the Markan Trial Narratives,”
ibid., 205–28. Following T. Rajak, “Dying for the Law: The Martyr’s Portrait in Jewish-Greek
Literature,” in Portraits: Biographical Representation in Greek and Latin of the Roman Empire,
nego (Dan 3:1–30; 6:1–28), nameless women and their infants (2 Macc 6:7–17),
Eleazar (2 Macc 6:18–31; 4 Macc 5:1–7:23), a nameless mother and her seven
sons (2 Macc 7:1–42), Razis (2 Macc 14:37–46; 4 Macc 8:1–17:1); Taxo and his
seven sons (T. Mos. 9:1–10:10); the collective suicides at Masada (Josephus,
B. J. 7.389–406).66 Because we are first introduced to these noble victims on the
verge of death,67 nothing in their executions68 can recall previous personages
or occurrences in life. Some motifs in these stories tally with Mark’s passion
narrative: irresistible provocation by Gentile authorities, indictments, trials,
verdicts, tortures, capital punishment, and eventual vindication.69 In important
ways Mark’s passion narrative differs from them: whereas Jesus says next to
nothing in 14:53–15:39, the Jewish martyrs are loquaciously eloquent in defense
of their εὐσέβεια. Like Socrates, they confront excruciating death with poise; in
Gethsemane Jesus is terrified (14:33). His crucifixion is simply stated (15:24a),
sans the gory details recounted in the Maccabean corpus.70 His vindication
is real but elliptical (16:1–8).71 Death as atonement is muted in Mark (10:45;
14:24), not proclaimed as by the mother and her son: “If our living Lord is angry
for a little while, to rebuke and discipline us, he will again be reconciled with his
own servants” (2 Macc 7:33, RSV). “I, like my brothers, give up body and life for
the laws of our fathers, appeal[ing] to God … through me and my brothers to
bring to an end the wrath of the Almighty which has justly fallen on our whole
nation” (2 Macc 7:37–38, RSV).
Although I cannot discern in them the revenants that haunt Mark’s pas-
sion narrative, these stories plainly adhere to a common pattern or sequence of
ed. M. J. Edwards and S. Swain (Oxford: Clarendon, 1997), 39–67, I prescind from using the
term “martyrologies,” since in the early imperial era it is unclear whether such stories defined
an independent genre or were (as Rajak believes) amalgams of many different genres. One
wonders if the same caution is advisable, not only in the case of the passion narratives, but also
in the Gospels of which they are constituent.
66 J. W. van Henten and F. Avemarie, eds., Martyrdom and Noble Death: Selected Texts from
Graeco-Roman, Jewish and Christian Antiquity (London: Routledge: 2002), 42–87, offers a
convenient compilation.
67 Eleazar in 1 Macc 6:43–46 is an exception.
68 Another exception: Daniel, Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego are all rescued from
grisly deaths and receive political appointments by their would-be assassins.
69 G. W. E. Nickelsburg, “The Genre and Function of the Markan Passion Narrative,” HTR
73 (1980): 153–84. Note that, in Mark 13:9, τὸ μαρτύριον is predicted of disciples under formal
trial.
70 Among others: incineration (Dan 3:15–22), skillet-frying and cauldron-boiling (2 Macc
7:3), scalping and other mutilations (2 Macc 7:4), the rack (2 Macc 6:28b; 4 Macc 5:3), and
self-evisceration (2 Macc 17:45–46).
71 In a carefully reasoned examination N. Willert (“Martyrology in the Passion Narratives
of the Synoptic Gospels,” in Contextualising Early Christian Martyrdom, ed. J. Engberg, U. H.
Eriksen, and A. K. Petersen, ECCA 8 [Frankfurt am Main: Lang, 2011], 15–43) concludes that
the “many martyrological motifs in the [Synoptics’] passion narratives … [do] not allow us to
define these texts [generically] as martyrdom accounts.”
events that can be variously identified.72 In their repetition of motifs, episodic

escalation, and conciliatory climax, the stories of Hellenistic Jewish martyrs
seem more reminiscent of the Luke’s parallel accounts of the executions of Jesus
(4:16–30; 22:47–23:46) and of Stephen (Acts 6:8–8:1a).73
3. Plutarch’s Lives (Early 2nd c. CE)

When approaching antiquity’s virtuoso biographer, it is hard to decide the
greater injustice: to treat Plutarch (ca. 45 – ca. 120 CE) summarily or to ignore
him altogether. The latter is scholarly obscene. Here only a few points may be
registered.
While a cursory review of his Parallel Lives has not disclosed to me “the
Kijé effect” I find in Mark’s passion narrative, in some ways Plutarch’s craft
both counters and resembles the evangelist’s. On the one hand, Mark is much
less methodical than Plutarch, whose introductions and epilogues tend to an-
nounce, then recapitulate, compositional elements elucidated throughout his
narratives.74 Moreover, Mark narrates in a linear sequence; at the beginning of
his Lives, Plutarch favors previews of his subjects’ conduct as adults.75 On the
other hand, between these authors lie some deep similarities. In constructing
his Lives Plutarch’s aim is didactic, rather than historical or strictly biographical;
72 J. W. van Henten, The Maccabean Martyrs as Saviours of the Jewish People: A Study of
2 and 4 Maccabees, JSJSup 57 (Leiden: Brill, 1997), 8; cf. Nickelsburg, “Genre and Function,”
157–62.
73 N. b. Luke 23:34, 46, ὁ δὲ Ἰησοῦς ἔλεγεν· πάτερ, ἄφες αὐτοῖς, οὐ οἴδασιν τί ποιοῦσιν …
ὁ Ἰησοῦς εἶπεν· πάτερ, εἰς χεῖράς σου παρατίθεμαι τὸ πνεῦμά μου; Acts 7:59, 60, καὶ λέγοντα·
κύριε Ἰησοῦ, δέξαι τὸ πνεῦμά μου … κύριε, μὴ στήσῃς αὐτοῖς ταύτην τὴν ἁμαρτίαν. Sub-
sequently the same pleas and exculpations were remembered among the last words of Christian
martyrs (H. Musurillo, ed., The Acts of the Christian Martyrs [Oxford: Clarendon, 1972]):
Pamfilus (Papylus), 2.4 (34–35); the martyrs of Lyons, 5.2 (82–83); Pionius, 10.21 (164–65);
Julius the Veteran, 19.4 (264–65). “Behind every description of [Christian] martyrdom lay the
example of Jesus” (A. J. Droge and J. D. Tabor, A Noble Death: Suicide and Martyrdom among
Christians and Jews in Antiquity [San Francisco: HarperCollins, 1992], 156). The fruition of
such imitatio Christi may be witnessed in the hagiography of Martin of Tours (ca. 317–397); see
D. Praet, “The Divided Cloak as Redemptio Militiae: Biblical Stylization and Hagiographical
Intertextuality in Sulpicius Severus’ Vita Martini,” in Writing Biography in Greece and Rome:
Narrative Technique and Fictionalization, ed. K. de Temmerman and K. Demoen (Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press, 2016), 133–59.
74 H. Erbse, “Die Bedeutung der Synkrisis in den Parellelobiographien Plutarchs,” Hermes
84 (1956): 398–424, esp. 406; C. S. Chrysanthou, Plutarch’s Parallel Lives: Narrative Technique
and Moral Judgement, Trends in Classics 57 (Berlin: De Gruyter, 2018), 8–15.
75 M. Beck, “Plutarch,” in Narrators, Narratees, and Narratives in Ancient Greek Literature,
vol. 1: Studies in Ancient Greek Narrative, ed. I. J. F. de Jong, R. Nünlist, and A. Bowie, Mnem-
Sup 257 (Leiden: Brill, 2004), 397–411, esp. 403–6. L. Van der Stockt (“Compositional Methods
in the Lives,” in A Companion to Plutarch, ed. M. Beck, Blackwell Companions to the Ancient
World 98 [Oxford: Wiley Blackwell, 2014], 321–32, esp. 325–26) argues that Plutarch typically
presents matters in chronological sequence, interrupted by flashbacks and flashforwards to
break monotony and to heighten the reader’s interest.
he wishes to cultivate particular virtues.76 The same is certainly true of Mark’s

Gospel. Plutarch’s signature technique is that of comparison (σύγκρισις, “plac-
ing side by side”):77 obviously so in his Parallel Lives, which portray in tandem
Greek and Roman personages, but in other works as well.78 “The Kijé effect”
is a subspecies of comparatio, whereby one narrative element mirrors another,
although Mark, unlike Plutarch, does not create biographical diptychs. More
to the point: both Mark and Plutarch are interested, not merely in their sub-
jects’ grand achievements, but in those tiny details that reveal the subject’s soul.
Plutarch spells out what is implicit in the Markan passion narrative:
It is not so much histories [ἱστορίας] that I am writing, but lives [βίους]. And in the most
illustrious deeds a virtue or vice is not always manifest. To the contrary, a slight thing – a
saying, a joke – often reveals more of a character than battles where thousands fall, or the
greatest armaments, or the conquest of cities. Just as painters capture a likenesses [τὰς
ὁμοιότητας] from [their subject’s] face and the expression of the eyes by which character
is suggested [ἐμφαίνεται] but pay scant attention to the body’s other parts, so I must be
permitted to probe the signs of the soul [τὰ τῆς ψυχῆς σημεῖα] and through these to shape
the life of each man, leaving to others the signal accomplishments [τὰ μεγέθῃ] and great
contests (Alex. 1.2–3, author’s trans.).
Like Plutarch’s Lives, Mark’s passion narrative attains a sublime balance of

ἐνάργεια – palpable, vivid illustration, “a sense of presence”79 – and that subtlety
by which true artistry may be concealed.
4. Suetonius’s Lives of the Caesars (Early 2nd c. CE)

In presenting its twelve subjects, De Vita Caesarum seems as straight-ahead as
Mark’s rendition of Jesus.80 Although Suetonius (ca. 69 – ca. 122 CE) recounts
none of the deaths of Rome’s first twelve emperors with the modulated verve
76 A. B. Bosworth, “History and Artifice in Plutarch’s Eumenes,” in Plutarch and the His-
torical Tradition, ed. P. A. Stadter (London: Routledge, 1992), 56–89, n. b. 79–80; T. E. Duff,
Plutarch’s Lives: Exploring Virtue and Vice (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1999); D. Kon-
stan and R. Walsh, “Civic and Subversive Biography in Antiquity,” in de Temmerman and
Demoen, Writing Biography in Greece and Rome, 26–43, n. b. 31.
77 A commonplace rhetorical device: Quintilian, Inst. 2.4.21; 6.3.66; 7.2.22; 8.4.3, 9; 8.5.5;
8.6.9. On Plutarch’s use of this technique, consult Duff, Plutarch’s Lives, 243–86; J. Boulogne,
“Les συγκρίσεις de Plutarque: Une rhétorique de la σύγκρισις,” in Rhetorical Theory and Praxis
in Plutarch: Acta of the IVth International Congress of the International Plutarch Society, Leuven,
July 3–6, 1996, ed. L. Van der Stockt, Collection d’études classiques 11 (Leuven: Peeters; Namur:
Société d’études classiques, 2000), 32–44.
78 Hägg, Art of Biography, 239–44, 280; M. De Pourcq and G. Roskam, “Mirroring Virtues
in Plutarch’s Agis, Cleomenes, and the Gracchi,” in de Temmerman and Demoen, Writing
Biography in Greece and Rome, 163–80.
79 Quintilian, Inst. 6.2.33–36; 8.3.61–71, 88–89; Demetrius, Eloc. 209–220.
80 R. C. Lounsbury proffers a deeper appreciation in The Arts of Suetonius: An Introduction,
American University Studies, Series 17, Classical Languages and Literature 3 (New York: Peter
Lang, 1987).
of Mark’s passion narrative, in some curious respects his technique intersects

with the evangelist’s. First, both evince interest in portents. “[Julius] Caesar’s
impending murder was foretold to him by unmistakable signs [evidentibus pro-
digiis]”: his horses wept and refused to graze; having flown into Pompey’s Hall, a
tiny kingbird was shredded by other birds in hot pursuit; the night before his as-
sassination both he and his wife Calpurnia foresaw it in a dream; and, of course,
the soothsayer’s warning of the Ides of March (Jul. 81). An ominous lightning
bolt, unexpected diarrhea, and unsettling torchlight by a friend’s tomb prompted
Augustus, on his last day, to invite an ovation from his friends as he prepared to
leave life’s stage (Aug. 98–99). The murder of the “monster” (Cal. 22) Caligula
was forecast by laughter erupting from a statue of Jupiter, the god to whom all
mortal souls would return (Macrobius, Sat. 1.10.16) and whose effigy Caligula
had ordered destroyed (Cal. 57). The mausoleum doors of another monster,
Nero, flew open by themselves, and a voice from within summoned him (Nero
46; cf. 40–41). So things run for another eight principes, bad or good (e. g., Claud.
46; Galb. 18–19; Vit. 9; Tit. 10; Dom. 23), one of whom even quipped, “O dear:
methinks I’m turning into a god” (Vesp. 23). Suetonius reports such omens as
dryly as he describes their victims’ military record, civil policy, sexual exploits,
diet, and eye-color. The variances between his and Mark’s approaches are the
auguries’ blatancy and disconnection from their subjects’ lives. “When beggars
die there are no comets seen; | The heavens themselves blaze forth the death of
princes” (Shakespeare, Julius Caesar 2.2).
In three other literary respects, however, Suetonius’s Lives and Mark’s Gospel
converge to some degree. First, as Tristan Power has demonstrated, Suetonius
employs with delicate subtlety a range of rhetorical devices: ring compositions,
as well as endings that recall earlier beginnings, whether of a Life or of its con-
stituent book or of another Life.81 Second, for both Suetonius and Mark, a man’s
character was stamped by the manner in which he died. Augustus leaves life in
peace, with piety (Aug. 100); Caligula, as a crazed suicide (Cal. 49); Jesus, as
the obedient suppliant of a God he can no longer see (Mark 15:34). Third, and
most provocative for my essay’s argument, Suetonius seems sensitive to a dif-
ferent company of “revenants.”82 Postmortem, Tiberius slayed others, “as though
the tyrant’s cruelty persisted even after his death” (quasi etiam post mortem
tyranny saevitia permanente; Tib. 75.3). Caligula returns to haunt the story of
his Life, first, as a ghost; later, as the cause of his wife and daughter’s ghastly
81 “The Endings of Suetonius’s Caesars,” in Suetonius the Biographer: Studies in Roman

Lives, ed. T. Power and R. K. Gibson (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2014), 58–77. On
Mark’s application of rhetoric, see C. C. Black, The Rhetoric of the Gospel: Theological Artistry
in the Gospels and Acts, 2nd ed. (Louisville: Westminster John Knox, 2013), 43–66.
82 The very term used by C. Damon in “Death by Narrative in Suetonius’ Lives,” in Ancient
Biography: Identity through Lives, ed. F. Cairns and T. Luke, ARCA Classical and Medieval
Texts, Papers, and Monographs 55 (Prenton, UK: Francis Cairns, 2018), 107–27, n. b. 124–25.
murders; lastly, as the possible creator of his own death-narrative (Cal. 59–60).
“In the house where he was slain not a night passed without some frightening
apparition, until at last the house itself was consumed by fire” (in ea quoque
domo, in qua occubuerit, nullam noctem sine aliquo terrore transactam, donec
ipsa domus incendio consumpta sit; Cal. 59). Suetonius mentions or narrates the
story of Domitian’s death not fewer than four times (Dom. 14.1; 16.2; 17.2, 3).
Arguably, Julius haunts all the assassination scenes of successive Caesars.83 Cyn-
thia Damon notes that an important element of an emperor’s identity was his
residual power: “it was hard to terminate a Caesar.”84 Slaying Jesus, “king of the
Jews,” was easy. Quelling his divine endorsement was not.
5. Philostratus’s Life of Apollonius (ca. 225 CE)

Philostratus’s Life of Apollonius is rich in colorful details about this itinerant
wonderworker, who excels in embodying the Greek heritage of such worthies as
Socrates (1.2; 4.25, 46), Heracles (2.33; 6.11) and Alexander (2.9, 20–21). None
of them and none of Apollonius’s serene ruminations on death (7.14–8.12)
return at his own end – “if, indeed, he did die” (εἴγε ἐτελεύτα; 8.29). Philostratus
concludes his Life with four anecdotes of his subject’s demise, each tossed away
in several desultory sentences (8.29–30) before hastening to his real interest: the
transfiguration of Apollonius, “which caused such amazement [that] nobody
dared deny that he was immortal” (8.31). In the late fourth century Eunapius
of Sardis opined that Philostratus’s Life might better have been entitled, A God
Visiting Mankind (Vit. soph. 454). What would Eunapius have made of Mark’s
“good news” that God’s son had been raised from death after crucifixion?
6. Diogenes Laertius’s Lives of the Eminent Philosophers

Diogenes Laertius (early 3rd c. CE) compiled for posterity the only comprehen-
sive album of Greek and Hellenistic philosophy: ten books depicting over eighty
figures. Entire books are devoted to Plato (3.1–109) and Epicurus (10.1–154);
Cebes, a pupil of Socrates, receives exactly eleven words (2.125). Diogenes revels
in quirky details: Aristotle lisped (5.1). Zeno liked green figs and sunbathing
(7.1). When Alexander the Great offered Diogenes whatever he desired, the Cynic
replied, “Get out of my light” (6.38). When it comes to death scenes, Laertius is
usually crisp, sometimes confused. Epimenides lived to be 157. Or was it 239?
Maybe 154 (1.111). Pherecydes wrote a friend, “I’m crawling with vermin; I’ve
83 J. Henderson, “Was Suetonius’ Julius a Caesar?,” in Power and Gibson, Suetonius the
Biographer, 81–110; R. Ash, “‘Never Say Die!’ Assassinating Emperors in Suetonius’ Lives of the
Caesars,” in de Temmerman and Demoen, Writing Biography in Greece and Rome, 200–16.
84 “Death by Narrative,” 125.
got a boiling fever and shivering fits” (1.121). Lice-infestation killed Plato (3.41).
Diogenes died either from eating raw octopus, from dog-bite, or by holding his
breath (6.76–77). Voluntary asphyxiation seems to have been in vogue: that, too,
is how both Metrocles (6.95) and Zeno croaked (7.28).85 Cleanthes starved him-
self to death (7.176). Arcesilaus drank himself to death (4.44). So did Lacydes
of Cyrene (4.61). And Chrysippus (7.184). Calculus disease took out Epicurus
(10.15). For fortitude in the midst of unquiet quietus, Anaxarchus of Abdera
stands out: when his enemy Nicocreon, “tyrant of Cyprus,” had him thrown into
a mill with iron grinders, the victim calmly commented, “Pulverize the sack of
Anaxarchus, but Anaxarchus you do not pulverize.” When the despot ordered
his sassy victim’s tongue cut out, Anaxarchus bit it off and spat it on Nicocreon
(10.58–59). The death of Mark’s Jesus lacks both Diogenes’s mundanity and
exuberance.
C. Analysis Ultimum
The final cornet has been sounded at Kijé’s funeral. If this study has been rightly
conducted, one may conclude that Mark continues to surprise us as a stylist of
considerable ability. In the passion narrative he more than holds his own beside,
not only the other evangelists, but also such classical worthies as Plutarch and
Suetonius. Like them, with exquisite care Mark has molded historical and tradi-
tional materials for the sake neither of artistry nor of entertainment but, rather,
to convey what he believes to be true: a truth surpassing empirically observable
reality.86 That truth is composed of multiple elements, which the evangelist him-
self epitomizes. Only in his last days do all the motley pieces of Jesus’s life fall into
place and make Christian sense. “To you has been given the mystery of God’s
sovereignty, but to those outside all things come in parables” (4:11, author’s
trans.). God’s truly anointed Son could be vindicated in no way other than as
the Son of Man who, parabolically, must suffer the ultimate repudiation of cru-
cifixion (8:31; 9:31; 10:33–34). One index of God’s signature upon his Son’s
life, death, and resurrection is their completion of what scripture was driving
85 My flippancy may be ill-advised. E. Kechagia (“Dying Philosophers in Ancient Biog-

raphy: Zeno the Stoic and Epicurus,” in de Temmerman and Demoen, Writing Biography in
Greece and Rome, 181–99, esp. 189) suggests that self-suffocation may have been regarded as a
fitting death by Stoics who were determined to quench their πνεῦμα, the constituent element of
cosmic vitality.
86 I have considered this at greater length in “Mark as Historian of God’s Kingdom,” CBQ 71
(2009): 64–83. For comparable assessments, see De Pourcq and Roskam, “Mirroring Virtues,”
178 (on Plutarch); J. A. Francis, “Truthful Fiction: New Questions to Old Answers on Philo-
stratus’ Life of Apollonius,” AJP 119 (1998): 419–41; Kechagia, “Dying Philosophers,” 198–99
(on Diogenes Laertius).
at: “the Son of Man goes as it is written of him” (14:21a). As the Second Gospel
was heard and pondered over decades, then centuries, its listeners came to con-
clude – possibly by its author’s design – that their Lord’s advance to Golgotha,
under his Father’s aegis, recapitulated that which Mark himself had written of
him in chapters 1–13.
Lucian of Samosata (ca. 125–180 CE) insisted, “History … cannot tolerate the
least fragment of untruth, any more than the windpipe, or so the doctors tell us,
tolerates objects that enter it when swallowed. … Truth is the only goddess to
whom the potential historian has to sacrifice; he need not trouble with anything
else” (Hist. conscr. 6, 40). Lucian seems to have believed that facts speak for them-
selves, requiring only their clarity and smoothness of arrangement (50–55).87
Among other ancient writers, Mark seems to have realized that no fact is self-
interpreting, that in the very composition and arrangement of happenings the
historian or biographer serves as a prism through which the mystery of a figure’s
life is brought into focus.88 A specific narrative form, whether ancient or modern,
conveys a particular meaning.89 “Biographical myth,” notes Patricia Cox, “is the
story of a face reflected in many mirrors, the kind of history whose shadings
and nuances reveal a divine telos, as Eusebius thought.”90 The telos to which the
entirety of Mark’s narrative drives91 is the hidden revelation of Jesus Christ as
the liberating, self-donative Son of Man who is abandoned, crucified, and vindi-
cated (10:33–34, 45; cf. 4:22–23). As much as Mark’s scriptural allusions, and
possibly summoned for the same purpose, the revenants of earlier figures and
episodes in Mark 14–16 mysteriously disclose the character, not only of Jesus,
but also of God’s elusive presence.92 More so than those biblical reverberations,
the ghosts that waft throughout the Markan passion narrative are unexpected
87 Here Lucian seems on the same wavelength as Dionysius of Halicarnassus (ca. 60 – ca.
5 BCE): “The science of composition … observe[s] which [verbal] combinations are naturally
likely to produce a beautiful, attractive, and unified effect. … [But] all adornments most be
qualified for their suitability [ὁ περὶ τοῦ πρέπον]. Indeed, if any other function fails to meet this
requirement, it fails to attain the most important goal” (Comp. 6, 20 author’s trans.).
88 Thus, Xenophon, Plutarch, Suetonius, Porphyry, and Eusebius, as assessed by P. Cox,
Biography in Late Antiquity: A Quest for the Holy Man (Berkeley, CA: University of California
Press, 1983), n. b. 8–15, 65–77, 107–12. I am indebted to Cox for the metaphor of author as
prism (145–49).
89 See I. Rutherford, Canons of Style in the Antonine Age: Idea-Theory in Its Literary Con-
text (Oxford: Clarendon, 1998), 31–36; de Jong, Nünlist, and Bowie, Studies in Ancient Greek
Narrative, xii.
90 Cox, Biography in Late Antiquity, 147.
91 Broadhead, Prophet, Son, Messiah, 259–96; G. Van Oyen, “The Meaning of the Death of
Jesus in the Gospel of Mark: A Real Reader Perspective,” in Van Oyen and Shepherd, Trial and
Death of Jesus, 49–68.
92 See S. Terrien, The Elusive Presence: Toward a New Biblical Theology (San Francisco:
Harper & Row, 1978); C. C. Black, “The Face Is Familiar – I Just Can’t Place It,” in The Ending
of Mark and the Ends of God: Essays in Memory of Donald Harrisville Juel, ed. B. R. Gaventa and
P. D. Miller (Louisville, KY: Westminister John Knox, 2005), 33–49.
and uncanny. They, like the Gospel they haunt, refuse to be caged by scholarly
analysis. True to the Messiah whose story he tells, Mark performs on his readers
an unheimlich maneuver.93
93 I have pilfered this phrase from J. J. Miller, describing the disturbing, dreamlike tales of
R. Aickman, collected in Compulsory Games and Other Stories, ed. V. Nelson, NYRB Classics
(New York: NYRB, 2016), viii.
Famous (or Not So Famous) Last Words
Last and Dying Words in Greco-Roman Biography
and Mark 15:34 Revisited
Justin Marc Smith
A. Introduction
There is something profoundly intriguing about the last words of famous or infa-
mous individuals. These last/dying moments are used as windows into the soul
and they confirm or challenge the notions we have concerning the individual.
If the subject in question was a good or moral person, these last words are used
to solidify that tradition. If the subject was amoral or criminal, we often look to
last words as an opportunity to make amends and/or an opportunity to con-
firm our judgment of them. This interest in last/dying words is not a modern
phenomenon. One need only to think of the puzzling last words of Socrates,
“Crito, we owe a cock to Asclepius. Do not neglect to pay it” (Phaed. 118a).1
Or we might consider the often-misattributed last words of Julius Caesar, “Et tu
Brute?”2 What do these last words say about their subject? Are they important
interpretative elements to the lives of such important figures?
The last/dying words of Jesus from the cross in Mark 15:34 have created simi-
lar questions, especially as they relate to the theological and practical meaning of
Jesus’s death in the Markan narrative. Does Jesus’s cry of dereliction signal true
abandonment of him on the part of God or is this hyperbolic? Is this literal or
symbolic? Is this historical or purely a literary construction based on Psalm 22?
The questions are many and varied. This essay cannot hope to answer most of
these questions.3 Instead, the purpose of this essay is to explore the last/dying
words of Jesus in Mark 15:34 within the context of last/dying words in Greco-
Roman biography. This inquiry stems from the growing scholarly consensus
1 Trans. R. Garrison, Why Are You Silent, Lord? BibSem 62 (Sheffield: Sheffield Academic
Press, 2000), 50.
2 This misquoting of Caesar is taken from William Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar, 3.1.77. The
references to Caesar’s last words will be discussed below.
3 H. J. Carey, Jesus’ Cry from the Cross: Towards a First-Century Understanding of the Inter-
textual Relationship Between Psalm 22 and the Narrative of Mark’s Gospel, LNTS 398 (London:
T&T Clark, 2009), 1–28 for a discussion of the current debate surrounding Mark 15:34.
308 Justin Marc Smith
that the gospels are examples of Greco-Roman biography and that they would
conform (at least in part) to the literary and cultural expectations of that genre.
To this point little direct attention has been paid to the connections between
Jesus’s final words in Mark and the last/dying words in Greco-Roman biogra-
phy.4 The bulk of the concern with Jesus’s last words in Mark has been centered
on their relationship to Psalm 22 (21 LXX) and the larger theme of the use of
Hebrew scripture in the crafting of Mark. This attention is well deserved, but
Mark does not write apart from the Greco-Roman literary context, and as such,
greater concern needs to be paid to his use, adoption, and appropriation of
Greco-Roman literary styles, tropes, and motifs. While the issues related to read-
ing and interpreting of Mark 15:34 in light of Psalm 22 are difficult and complex,
the reading of Jesus’s last words in Mark in light of the Greco-Roman tradition
of noble death is no less complex. Here, we would ask: How might the dying
words of Jesus have been read within the larger Greco-Roman context of noble
death and dying? How and where are these themes found in the Greco-Roman
biographical tradition? Finally, how might these traditions (noble death/dying
and Greco-Roman biography) be profitable for interpreting the dying words of
Jesus in Mark 15:34?
B. Assessing Noble Death in the

Greco-Roman Tradition
One of the challenges here is in establishing a definition for what would con-
stitute a noble death in the Greco-Roman context.5 Jan Willem van Henten and
Friedrich Avemarie place the definition of noble death within the larger milieu
4 Even a cursory reading of the following texts showed little to no mention of Greco-Roman
biography in connection to Mark 15:34; see W. L. Lane, The Gospel according to Mark: The Eng-
lish Text with Introduction, Exposition, and Notes, NICNT (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1974);
L. Williamson, Mark, IBC (Atlanta: John Knox, 1983); R. H. Gundry, Mark: A Commentary on
His Apology for the Cross (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1993); C. A. Evans, Mark 8:27–16:20,
WBC 34B (Nashville: Nelson, 2001), 506–7; J. R. Donahue and D. J. Harrington, The Gospel of
Mark, SP (Collegeville, MN: Liturgical Press, 2002); M. E. Boring, Mark: A Commentary, NTL
(Louisville, KY: Westminster John Knox, 2006); A. Yarbro Collins, Mark: A Commentary, ed.
H. W. Attridge, Hermeneia (Minneapolis: Fortress, 2007); R. H. Stein, Mark, BECNT (Grand
Rapids, MI: Baker Academic, 2008); and M. A. Beavis, Mark, Paideia (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker
Academic, 2011). See also S. Walton, “What Are the Gospels? Richard Burridge’s Impact on
Scholarly Understanding of the Genre of the Gospels,” CurBR 14/1 (2015): 81–93.
5 Here we would adopt the parameters for the Greco-Roman era as, roughly, the period
from 323 BCE (the conquest of Alexander the Great) to 395 CE (the dissolution of the Roman
Empire into the Eastern and Western Empires). The interest here in the biographical tradition
(and possible literary influences) would expand this time frame a bit. In this case we would
also envisage the development of Greek and Roman biography from the 5th c. BCE to the 4th
c. CE. See R. A. Burridge, What Are the Gospels? A Comparison with Graeco-Roman Biography,
2nd ed. (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 2004), 67–77, for a discussion of the development of
biography during this period.
Famous (or Not So Famous) Last Words 309
of martyrdom.6 This is in some sense helpful, especially as they provide the

following working definition of martyrdom: “a martyr is a person who in an
extremely hostile situation prefers a violent death to compliance with a demand
of the (usually pagan) authorities.”7 While beneficial, this definition has the dis-
advantage of assuming a conflict with pagan authorities.8 This conflict would not
necessarily be part of the larger Greco-Roman setting (although it could be part
of the Jewish and Christian contexts) and so noble death would need to be ex-
panded, appropriately, to include violent deaths apart from the conflict between
pagan and non-pagan contexts. This also defines noble deaths, for the purposes
of this essay, as deaths most often associated with violence.9 Certainly, a number
of types of non-violent deaths would also qualify here. One could imagine sick-
ness and natural causes to fall upon noble/just individuals without reflecting
negatively on the individual in any particular way.10 But given the violent nature
6 J. W. van Henten and F. Avemarie, eds., Martyrdom and Noble Death: Selected Texts from
Graeco-Roman, Jewish, and Christian Antiquity (London: Routledge, 2002), 1–8. Martyrdom
in this context is understood in its pre-Christian context. Here, we are thinking simply of one
who is killed/dies for refusing to abandon a particular conviction (or set of convictions). These
convictions could be theological, philosophical, etc. This would broaden the scope to include
traditions that are not specifically Christian.
7 Van Henten and Avemarie, Martyrdom and Noble Death, 3.
8 Van Henten and Avemarie, Martyrdom and Noble Death, 5. Van Henten and Avemarie,
to their credit, recognize this difficulty and suggested that the category of noble death should
be expanded to include, “death on the battlefield by falling victim or forcing one’s own death,
execution, as well as other forms of self-sacrifice and suicide.”
9 Van Henten and Avemarie, Martyrdom and Noble Death, 5. Here they make note of the
Greek category of “biaiothanasia (‘violent death’): death on the battlefield by falling victim or
forcing one’s own death, execution, as well as other forms of self-sacrifice and suicide.” See A. J.
Droge and J. D. Tabor, A Noble Death: Suicide and Martyrdom among Christians and Jews in
Antiquity (San Francisco: HarperCollins, 1992), for a discussion of suicides and noble deaths
in the Greco-Roman tradition.
10 See R. Garland, The Greek Way of Death, 2nd ed. (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University
Press, 2001), 1–21; M. S. Mirto, Death in the Greek World: From Homer to the Classical Age,
trans. A. M. Osborne, Oklahoma Series in Classical Culture 44 (Norman, OK: University of
Oklahoma Press, 2012); and V. M. Hope, Roman Death: Dying and the Dead in Ancient Rome
(London: Continuum, 2009), 18–40, 54–57, for discussion of death and dying in the ancient
Greek and Roman contexts. Hope is helpful for identifying the elements of “good death” in the
Roman tradition (54–57). In the Greco-Roman biographical traditions, a couple of examples of
noble and non-violent death come to mind. Nepos presents the death of Atticus from a disease
of the bowels (Att. 21.1–22.4). The disease eventually overtook Atticus, but not before he could
make the conscious decision not to prolong his life (by abstaining from food) and not before
he could offer his farewell address (see Garland, Greek Way of Death, 16–18, on the Greek
tradition of “settling one’s affairs” before death). Porphyry also details a similar end for Plotinus
(death due to bowel disease coupled with the last words and admonitions to his loved ones, Vit.
Plot. 2.1–40). The deaths of Augustus (Suetonius, Aug. 99.1–2), Numa and Lucullus (Plutarch,
Num. 21.3–4; Luc. 43.1–2) were reasonably peaceful (Numa and Lucullus drifted off into old
age and death, although there were some questions raised about the nature of Lucullus’s death).
Augustus transitioned into death after kissing his wife Livia and stating: “Live mindful of our
wedlock, Livia, and farewell” (Aug. 99.1, trans. J. C. Rolfe, Suetonius, vol. 1, rev. ed., LCL 31
of Jesus’s death in Mark and the Christian tradition, the closest parallels to the
potential nobility of Jesus’s death (and Jesus’s last words) would be found in the
traditions related to the nobility of violent deaths.
Van Henten and Avemarie divide the types of noble deaths in the pagan, Jew-
ish and Christian contexts into three distinct layers based loosely on generic or
literary type.11 One potential criticism here is the rather flat rendering of generic
and literary types without greater care and detail for establishing some sort of
definitive relationship between types. Further, there does not seem to be enough
detail in working through the specific literary and generic dependencies of these
types. There are certainly some thematic connections between the types (that of
various noble death traditions), but there is not enough care in the exploration
and establishment of how the literary types, themes, and tropes influence one
another. In other words, van Henten and Avemarie take notice of similarities in
Jewish and Christian texts depicting martyrdom and noble death, but they do
not seem to acknowledge that these two traditions have some greater measure
of interdependency.12 Both of these traditions are dependent, it would seem, on
earlier Greco-Roman and Near Eastern traditions at the least.13 The emphasis
on martyrdom obscures the variety of material available to us on the topic of
noble death and the biographic tradition is all but ignored. They divide the noble
death traditions into the following three categories and corresponding literary
types: (1) pagan noble deaths – “wisdom stories; self-sacrifice tragedies; lives of
philosophers (Plato’s Apology)”; “funeral orations; devotio; and trial protocols
(acts)”; (2) Jewish and Christian texts that resemble but are distinct from mar-
tyrdom – “heroic self-killing; suffering righteous wisdom stories; and violent
death of prophets”; and (3) “narratives detailing martyrdom” (either Jewish or
Christian).14
Garrison’s treatment of the theme of “innocent suffering in the Greek, Roman
and Biblical traditions” is helpful as it incorporates a slightly wider range of lit-
erary material.15 However, Garrison’s preoccupation is with the larger issue of
theodicy, and he is less interested in noble death over and against the issue of
righteous suffering. The death of Jesus, as recorded in Mark and in Christian
tradition, would seem to demonstrate some overlap not only with the themes
of noble death and righteous suffering, but with a number of the literary types
[Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1998], 303). Suetonius presents that this was the
kind of peaceful “euthanasia” Augustus had always hoped for (Aug. 99.2).
11 Van Henten and Avemarie, Martyrdom and Noble Death, 5–6.
13 Van Henten and Avemarie, Martyrdom and Noble Death, 9–41. Van Henten and Avemarie
do connect the theme of noble death to earlier traditions, superficially. However, they still tend
to employ a “snap-shot” approach and do not do enough to connect these disparate examples
into a larger and more cohesive matrix.
15 Garrison, Why Are You Silent, 15–27.
established by van Henten and Avemarie. Here the question again turns to the
main concern of this essay: what connection is there between the last words of
a dying individual and their righteous/just or noble death, and how does this
relate to Jesus’s words from the cross in Mark 15?
1. Violent/Unnatural Noble Deaths

As discussed previously, noble death could be categorized in a number of ways.
Many of these sorts of deaths would have been violent or unnatural. However,
some of these noble deaths would not be violent. For our purposes here, we
would bracket off the non-violent deaths from those that are violent/unnatural.16
Sergi Grau presents a typology for the deaths of philosophers in the work of
Diogenes Laertius that may function, in part, as a guide for how noble death
might be perceived for philosophers and the like.17 One potential challenge
here is to assume that these rubrics were in place at an earlier stage (during the
lifetime of Socrates, etc.) as opposed to representative of the advance of ideas
associated with noble death as Greco-Roman cultural norms developed. At the
least, this typology of Grau’s draws together the connection between the sort
of life the individual lived and the kind of death they received. Simply put, an
honorable life/career deserved an honorable death.18 Grau’s discussion of deaths
in the philosophical tradition is helpful for setting the tone of Socrates as the ex-
emplar par excellence in the Greco-Roman tradition of noble death at the hands
of the unjust.19
2. The Death of Socrates and the Noble Death of Philosophers

While there are certainly Assyrian and ANE antecedents to the tradition of noble
death at the hands of unjust authorities, for the purposes of this essay, we will
16 S. Grau, “How to Kill a Philosopher: The Narrating of Ancient Greek Philosophers’

Deaths in Relation to Their Way of Living,” Ancient Philosophy 30 (2010): 347–81, esp. 376.
17 Grau, “How to Kill a Philosopher.” The typology is as follows (a final condensed list
from the motifs he builds over the course of the article): (a) sudden/ridiculous death as a re-
versal of the life and/or teachings of the subject; (b) suicide; (c) illness (most common being
an infestation of lice or related conditions); (d) as the result of “religious impiety”; (e) an ideal
natural death; and (f ) death as a martyr. Here he notes that “of all the ways of dying, only the
last two are clearly positive in the biographical tradition: death by excess of joy at an extremely
old age, and violent death. Death desired by a god is, in some cases, ambiguous. The remaining
deaths are clearly negative and contribute to making the life of the philosopher inglorious. In
particular, as we have seen, the first three kinds comprise a single schema of death by failure that
punishes the philosopher with an inglorious and/or anodyne death” (ibid., 376).
19 Burridge, What Are the Gospels?, 370. See A. Yarbro Collins, “From Noble Death to Cru-
cified Messiah,” NTS 40 (1994): 481–503, esp. 482–84; Garrison, Why Are You Silent, 45–52; and
van Henten and Avemarie, Martyrdom and Noble Death, 12–14, 28–30, for discussion of the
role of Socrates in defining/re-defining noble death.
begin with the traditions of the noble death of Socrates and the noble deaths of
philosophers.20 The desire to live a virtuous life through self-sacrifice is articu-
lated particularly well in the writings of Aristotle (Eth. nic. 9.8.7–9, 1169a12–30)
where self-sacrifice for a worthy cause, even to the point of one’s own death,
is seen to be a supreme act of nobility.21 If a philosopher (or anyone else) then
modeled this ideal of self-sacrifice, to the point of death, said philosopher would
be held up as a model worthy of honor and emulation.22 But this worthiness is
not merely the result of honoring one who “can look past death in order to ac-
complish … fundamental goals, or hold tightly to … foundational convictions.”23
Furthermore, “noble deaths are worthy of imitation because the attitudes and
actions of those dying are praiseworthy and held in high esteem.”24
Two of the most cited examples of noble death in the face of tyrannical
power are the deaths of Zeno of Elea and Anaxarchus of Abdera, as recorded by
Diogenes Laertius. These two heroic/noble deaths bear the striking similarities
that follow: (1) confrontation with a tyrant; (2) triumphant/defiant last words;
(3) self-mutilation; and (4) death by beating or grinding.25 Zeno is recorded by
Laertius as saying at his death that the tyrant Nearchus is a “curse to the city”
and that the people should be ashamed of themselves for being afraid to face the
same kind of pain and torment that Zeno himself faces.26 Likewise, Anaxarchus
is recorded as expressing the sentiment that the destruction of his body is not
20 Van Henten and Avemarie, Martyrdom and Noble Death, 9–10, 24–25 for a discussion of
The Story of Ahiqar as literary antecedent to the “court intrigue” tradition (10). These traditions
are seen well in Genesis 37–50, Esther, Susannah, Daniel 3 and 6. See C. B. Tkacz, “Esther,
Jesus, and Psalm 22,” CBQ 70 (2008): 709–28.
21 Van Henten and Avemarie, Martyrdom and Noble Death, 11. This tradition of self-sacrifice
for the greater good is also picked up in the Roman tradition of devotio as “the ‘dedication’ by
military persons of themselves, the enemy’s army, or both to the gods of the underworld or
other, often anonymous deities” (ibid., 19). Simply put, “devotio ‘dedication, devotion’ means
the willingness to sacrifice oneself for the well-being of a group or a major cause” (ibid.). See
ibid., 19–20 for a discussion of the substitutionary elements of devotio. Also see H. S. Versnel,
“Self-Sacrifice, Compensation and Anonymous Gods,” in Le Sacrifice dans l’Antiquité: Huit ex-
posés suivis de discussions, ed. J. Rudhardt and O. Reverdin, Entretiens sur l’Antiquité classique
27 (Geneva: Fondation Hardt, 1981), 135–94, esp. 171–79 for a survey of Roman ceremonial
deaths as a means of victory.
22 According one account recorded by Diogenes Laertius, Aristotle emulated Socrates by
drinking aconite after being indicted for impiety (Vit. phil. 2.46; cf. Plato, Apol. 35d).
23 B. K. Gamel, “The Centurion’s Confession as Apocalyptic Unveiling: Mark 15:39 as a
Markan Theology of Revelation,” (PhD diss., Baylor University, 2014), 116.
24 Gamel, “Centurion’s Confession,” 116.
25 Diogenes Laertius, Vit. phil. 9.27, 59. Grau argues that the version of Zeno’s death at
9.27 (being an alternate version of the death) is likely based on the narrative recorded at 9.59
(“How to Kill a Philosopher,” 375). This seems likely given the parallel accounts, however the
account recorded in 9.26 has some thematic similarities with (unrecorded) defiant words of the
philosopher and physical mutilation of the tyrant (the biting off of the nose or ear) and then the
subsequent death of the philosopher.
26 Vit. phil. 9.27, trans. R. D. Hicks, Diogenes Laertius: Lives of Eminent Philosophers, vol. 2:
Books 6–10, rev. ed., LCL 185 (London: Heinemann; New York: Putnam’s Sons, 1931), 437.
the destruction of himself.27 Similar themes are present in the martyrdom of the
seven brothers in 2 Macc 7:1–42.28 Here the seven brothers and their mother
are to be compelled to eat pork in defiance of Jewish law and tradition (2 Macc
7:1). The first brother refuses, offers defiant words (7:2); has his tongue cut out
(similar to Zeno and Anaxarchus who bite off their own tongues) (7:4); and is
tortured to death (7:5–7). The other six brothers die in a similar fashion, but not
before offering similar defiant words. Of some special consideration should be
the description applied to the attitude of the third brother. 2 Macc 7:12 presents
that the third brother “… regarded his suffering as nothing.”29 Here again, we
would notice in the broad Greco-Roman tradition that it was not uncommon for
philosophers and the philosophically/ethically minded to deem suffering at the
hands of an unjust tyrant a just or noble act.
An all but overlooked example of the philosopher suffering at the hands of
an unjust ruler is that of Apollonius of Tyana.30 Philostratus writes, “I know that
tyranny is the truest test of men of philosophy …,” with the point being that he
plans to demonstrate how Apollonius bravely (honorably) took on the tyranny
of Domitian as many other philosophers had taken on tyranny before him (Vit.
Apoll. 7.1).31 Philostratus goes on to summarize the history of philosophers who
have stood up to tyranny and in the process critiques them for not being nearly
as brave and noble as Apollonius.32 Apollonius, when confronted with the advice
of his students Damis and Demetrius, decides it is better to face the tyranny of
Domitian than to flee. In this way he embodies the theme of (potential) noble
death in his willingness to present himself (although Apollonius emerges from
27 Vit. phil. 9.59. Cf. Arrian’s preservation of Epictetus’ Discourses, 1.29.18; 2.2.15; 3.23,
where he records the words of Socrates as echoing a similar sentiment. See also Plato, Apol.
30c–d.
28 The interaction between the development of Jewish martyrdom traditions in the Second
Temple period and the contact with Hellenistic notions of noble death would be worthy of
greater discussion.
29 This connects especially well to the ideas attributed to Aristotle (Eth. nic. 9.8.7–9,
1169a12–30) above and to the larger tradition of suffering for a noble cause. This is not to say
that there are not similar themes to be found in the Jewish tradition, especially those related to
righteous suffering. However, those themes will be addressed later in direct connection to the
use of/allusion to Psalm 22 and the Wisdom of Solomon in Mark’s passion narrative.
30 Van Henten and Avemarie (Martyrdom and Noble Death, 11) devote a lengthy paragraph
to Apollonius but they skim over the most important part of Philostratus’s work as it relates to
noble death/suffering at the hands of an unjust ruler.
31 Trans. C. P. Jones, Philostratus: The Life of Apollonius of Tyana, vol. 2: Books 5–8, LCL 17
(Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2005), 211.
32 Compare Philostratus’s view of Zeno of Elea (Vit. Apoll. 7.2.1; 7.3.1) with that of Diogenes
Laertius (Vit. phil. 9.27). Here he downplays the bravery of Zeno and seems to call Plato into
criticism as well. We might also mention Secundus the Silent Philosopher who squares off with
Hadrian, but is spared because of Hadrian’s respect for Secundus’s values, as well as considering
the narratives of Daniel 3 and 6. See B. E. Perry, Secundus the Silent Philosopher: The Greek Life
of Secundus, Philological Monographs 22 (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1964). Gamel
(“Centurion’s Confession,” 116) refers to Daniel 3 and 6 as “proto-martyrdoms.”
his conflict with Domitian unscathed, Vit. Apoll. 8.1–14) before the unjust tyrant
Domitian, and thus put himself at risk for his beliefs. For Apollonius, “for the
wise it is more proper to die on behalf of their beliefs.”33
3. The Death of Socrates in the Works of Plato and Xenophon

Socrates’s death stands as an important (if not the most important) example of
noble death in the face of unjust circumstances.34 His example transcended the
Hellenistic world and had its imprint on the Roman world as well.35 The concept
of taking one’s own death into one’s own hands was a practice embraced by many
Romans as a means of understanding their own (dishonorable) deaths as honor-
able.36 Here we would look at the presentation of Socrates’s death by Plato and
Xenophon as indicative of the proper/noble response to unjust death/suffering.37
Perhaps the most important statement on the innocence of Socrates (and
Socrates’s attitude toward noble death) is found in Plato’s Apology. Here Socrates
states,
Therefore, I say to you, men of Athens, either do as Anytus tells you, or not, and either
acquit me, or not, knowing that I shall not change my conduct even if I am to die many
times over. Do not make a disturbance, men of Athens; continue to do what I asked of you,
not to interrupt my speech by disturbances, but to hear me; and I believe you will profit
by hearing. Now I am going to say some things to you at which you will perhaps cry out;
but do not do so by any means. For know that if you kill me, I being such a man as I say
I am, you will not injure me so much as yourselves; for neither Meletus nor Anytus could
injure me; that would be impossible, for I believe it is not God’s will that a better man be
injured by a worse. He might, however, perhaps kill me or banish me or disfranchise me;
and perhaps he thinks he would thus inflict great injuries upon me, and others may think
so, but I do not; I think he does himself a much greater injury by doing what he is doing
now – killing a man unjustly.38
33 Vit. Apoll. 7.14.2, trans. Jones, LCL 17:239.

34 Van Henten and Avemarie, Martyrdom and Noble Death, 12. See also Garrison, Why Are
You Silent, 45–52 and Yarbro Collins, “Noble Death,” 482–84.
35 Van Henten and Avemarie, Martyrdom and Noble Death, 12. See K. Döring, Exemplum
Socratis: Studien zur Sokratesnachwirkung in der kynisch-stoischen Popularphilosophie der
frühen Kaiserzeit und im frühen Christentum, Hermes Einzelschriften 42 (Wiesbaden: Steiner,
1979). Of particular interest here are the chapters on the literary reception of Socrates in ancient
works (1–17) and the chapter on Socrates in the work of Seneca (18–42). See the descriptions of
the deaths of Seneca and Thrasea Paetus by Tacitus (Ann. 15.60–64; 16.34–35) as emulations of
Socrates’s death. See G. W. Most, “Plotinus’ Last Words,” ClQ 53 (2003): 576–87, esp. 587. Also
compare the activities of both to Garland, Greek Way of Death, 16–18 and the Greek tradition
of “settling one’s affairs” before death.
37 Note the possible connections between the suffering of the just person (torture culminat-
ing in impalement/crucifixion [ἀνασχινδυλευθήσεται, “he will be impaled”]) in the Republic
(361e–362a) and Mark 8:31; 9:30–32; and 10:32–34, with 10:32–34 as the closest parallel.
38 Plato, Apol. 30b–d, trans. H. N. Fowler, Plato, vol. 1: Euthyphro, Apology, Crito, Phaedo,
Phaedrus, LCL 36 (London: Heinemann; New York: Putnam, 1914), 108–11, emphasis added.
It is clear that Plato envisages Socrates as both innocent/just and one who
viewed his likely death as unjust and not indicative of his true character. The
body can be destroyed, but Socrates will not be. Furthermore, the killing of a
just person, in an unjust manner, brings greater dishonor upon the killer than it
does the one who is killed. In this way the dishonor is reversed and the victim
is honorable and the killer is not. This accepting, if not defiant attitude toward
death is also seen in the closing moments of Socrates’s life as recorded in Plato’s
Phaedo. Plato puts forth that after Socrates took the hemlock (and after humor-
ously asking the executioner if he could pour out a little of the poisonous liquid
as a libation offering and after admonishing his associates for crying over him,
117b–e) he spoke his final words, “Crito, we owe a cock to Asclepius. Do not
neglect to pay it” (118a).39 While there is some question as to what these words
mean, the most compelling arguments suggest that these words were meant in
good faith and likely as representative of Socrates’s piety (over and against the
ἀσέβεια that he had been charged with).40 Here Socrates has demonstrated piety
and nobility in the face of an unjust end.
Similarly, Xenophon sees the death of Socrates as the death of an innocent
man. However, he also sees Socrates’s death as a favor of the gods. Xenophon
offers that Socrates recognized that to die at the time that the gods had prescribed
for him was a good thing.41 In this way he would not have to suffer through the
indignities of old age. The gods had seen fit to use the injustice of the situation to
produce a just result: the timely death of a just person and this was a result that
Socrates himself desired and accepted.42 Socrates was blessed with an end that
is preferred by the gods.43 While differing in their opinions as to why Socrates
endured an (seemingly) unjust death, Xenophon and Plato were in agreement
on Socrates’s innocence and piety.44 For Plato, Socrates embodied the concept of
noble death at the hands of the unjust (a common fate for those who challenged
the authority of a tyrant). For Xenophon, Socrates was spared the indignities
39 Ὦ Κρίτων, ἔφη, τῷ Ἀσκληπιῷ ὀφείλομεν ἀλεκτρυόνα· ἀλλὰ ἀπόδοτε καὶ μὴ ἀμελήσητε

(text Fowler, LCL 36:402; trans. Garrison, Why Are You Silent, 50).
40 Garrison (Why Are You Silent, 50) sees this final statement as a “sarcastic comment” on
the part of Plato as a criticism of the “ritualistic piety of the state.” G. W. Most sees the statement
as indicative of Socrates’s thanks at the healing of Plato and seeks to honor Asclepius for his
healing; a healing that will enable Plato to take on important work (“A Cock for Asclepius,”
ClQ 43 [1993]: 96–111, esp. 106–11). Most notices that only Plato is mentioned to be sick,
specifically, in the Phaedo (59b, ll. 5–10). See ibid., 106–7. Cf. Xenophon, Mem. 4.7.9.
41 Xenophon, Apol. 5–7.
42 Xenophon, Apol. 1; 5–7.
43 Xenophon, Apol. 32. Xenophon argues that the gods had prevented Socrates from
mounting a successful defense since it was their will that he die (Apol. 8–9; 22).
44 See Plato, Apol. 27a–e, where Socrates challenges the assertion that he is atheist (and
therefore impious). Elsewhere Socrates makes mention of “God” (Apol. 19a; 20e; 21e; 22a; etc.)
implying a belief in at least one of the traditional deities. See Xenophon, Mem. 1.3.1; 4. 8. 11. See
also Garrison, Why Are You Silent, 48–51.
of old age and was gifted a merciful end by the gods. For both, the state acted
unjustly toward Socrates.
4. Summary
In summation, noble deaths in the Greco-Roman world could be either violent
(suicide, devotio, a just death at the hands of an unjust power) or non-violent
(death by old age, disease, or happy/celebratory circumstances). The violent
deaths of a noble character are displayed at various levels of the Greco-Roman
tradition and are found in a number of literary types. The theme of just/noble vi-
olent death is also found in other cultural traditions (Ancient Near East) and the
intermingling of these cultural expressions can be seen in the Jewish and Chris-
tian appropriation of these traditions. The persecution/death of philosophers
at the hands of unjust kings/authorities is a repeated theme in Greco-Roman
literary and cultural tradition and Socrates (and his noble death) came to be seen
as characteristic of this sort of death. If this understanding of noble death serves
as part of the literary and cultural background to the Evangelists and the gospels,
then we may probe further as to the effect/influence it may have had on the
crafting of the passion narrative in Mark (and the subsequent gospels). Further,
it is of importance to assess what role or meaning the last words of those who die
noble deaths might mean to the overall interpretation of their lives.45
C. Last Words/D ying Words in

Greco-Roman Biography
Given the discussion above, it becomes necessary to consider the traditions as-
sociated with the last words/dying words of key figures in Greco-Roman biog-
raphy. Death scenes are often customary features of biography, as they tend to
be important to the process of “portraying the character of the departed.”46 The
issue of dying a “bad death” was a concern for many, and “in literature such bad
deaths generally happened to bad characters. Whereas a good death reflected a
good life, a bad death reflected a bad life.”47
45 An interesting sort of counter-example might be the death of Homer in Ps.‑Plutarch’s
On Homer, where Homer dies from embarrassment/frustration/depression at not being able
to ascertain the meaning of a riddle (De Hom. 1.4; M. L. West, ed. and trans., Homeric Hymns,
Homeric Apocrypha, Lives of Homer, LCL 496 [Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press,
2003], 410–11). This narrative is refuted by Ps.‑Herodotus (Vit. Hom. 36; West, ibid., 398–99).
46 D. R. Stuart, Epochs of Greek and Roman Biography, Sather Classical Lectures 1 (Berke-
ley, CA: University of California Press, 1928), 245; Burridge, What Are the Gospels?, 160–61. See
also A. J. Saldarini, “Last Words and Deathbed Scenes in Rabbinic Literature,” JQR 68 (1977):
28–45, and Burridge, What Are the Gospels?, 331–40, for discussion of deathbed scenes and the
overall lack of biography in Rabbinic literature, respectively.
47 Hope, Roman Death, 61–62.
1. Last Words/D ying Words in Greco-Roman Biography – Early Examples

Neither Isocrates nor Xenophon presents the last words of their protagonists
(Evagoras and Agesilaus, respectively) in their early biographical treatments
(4th c. BCE). It seems that Isocrates sought to avoid the embarrassment of the
violent death of Evagoras (assassination) and Xenophon similarly lacks an ac-
count of the death of his hero Agesilaus.48 The dying words of Socrates (dis-
cussed above) as recorded by Plato in the Phaedo (118a) are worthy of mention
briefly.
While this would not fall under the general category of biography (bios/vita),
these last words (“Crito, we owe a cock to Asclepius. Do not neglect to pay it”)
suggest a Socrates that is at ease and at peace with his death and one that has
accepted, honorably, his own end.49 It may be the case that Socrates here ex-
hibits a certain piety by maintaining his devotion of the gods (contra the charges
leveled against him) and at the least, as Glenn W. Most has argued, these final
words show Socrates’s general care for his friends and students.50 This would
constitute a good death, a noble death, and one that would be a challenge to
the unjust sentence he had been given. In short, his words are demonstrative of
his approach to death, even an unjust one, and there is no sense that Socrates
is railing against the injustice of the sentence, rather, he accepts his fate nobly,
with his last breath. In this way, Socrates’s good death (as evidenced by his dying
words) reinterprets his dishonorable death-sentence.
The collected biographies of Cornelius Nepos of the lives of great generals
of foreign nations contain twenty-two biographies and a short digest on foreign
(non-Roman) kings. Of the biographies of Greek generals he includes dying/last
words for only two: Epaminondas and Phocion.51 Nepos offers that after Epami-
48 It may be the case that both authors sought to avoid the potentially embarrassing elements
of the deaths of their subjects; see T. Hägg, The Art of Biography in Antiquity (Cambridge: Cam-
bridge University Press, 2012), 39. For a breakdown of the subject matter of these two works
see Burridge, What Are the Gospels?, 132–33. Plutarch records Agesilaus’s last words as: “For
if I have done any goodly deed, that shall be my memorial; but if not, then not all the statues
in the world, the works of menial and worthless men, will avail” (Apoph. lac. 215a, trans. F. C.
Babbitt, Plutarch: Moralia, vol. 3, LCL 245 [London: Heinemann; New York: Putnam’s Sons,
1931], 285).
49 Hope writes, “So often we are presented with ideas about how one should die rather than
how one did. Most of these ideals were focused on men, especially the élite, and the need to face
death, whatever the circumstance, with the courage of a soldier, with calmness and resolve ….
In short, it did not matter what killed you, but how you faced death and then died” (Hope,
Roman Death, 64, emphasis added). Hope’s comments are directed more specifically to Roman
attitudes toward death, but they would seem to echo in and be influenced by Greek attitudes
toward noble death in general and the example of Socrates, specifically. See van Henten and
Avemarie, Martyrdom and Noble Death, 12.
50 Most, “A Cock for Asclepius,” 106–11.
51 Hope (Roman Death, 62) questions just how much of these sorts of recorded death
scenes would have been historically accurate and how much would have been as the result of
literary interests.
nondas had been targeted for death (by the Lacedaemonians) in battle and after
he had received a mortal wound, he refused to die until he had assurance that he
had won the battle. Upon hearing this he uttered, “I have lived long enough, since
I die unconquered.”52 He then pulled out the tip of the spear lodged in his body
and died. He faced death with courage and honor and died in battle, as a soldier
should. His last words reflect his triumph over his enemies and his triumph (in
part) over the prospect of death. Similarly, Phocion, after being charged with
crimes against the city of Athens, was not afforded the opportunity to make a
speech in his defense. He was sentenced to death and on his way to his execution
he was met by a friend (Euphiletus) who lamented Phocion’s poor treatment.
Phocion replied, “But it is not unexpected; for nearly all the distinguished men
of Athens have met this end.”53 Again, it is bravery in the face of death, even an
unjust one, which makes Phocion’s death a noble one.54
2. Last Words/D ying Words in Greco-Roman Biography – Later Examples

Given the few examples of last/dying words employed in the biographies of the
earlier period (from the 5th/4th c. BCE to the 1st c. BCE), we would turn our
attention to the biographies of the later period, 1st c. CE to the 4th c. CE.55 Here,
we would examine some of the examples from Suetonius, Plutarch, Tacitus,
Philostratus, Lucian, Porphyry, and Diogenes Laertius.
a. Suetonius’s Lives of the Twelve Caesars

Given the salacious nature of Suetonius’s works on the lives of the first twelve
Caesars, one would expect a variety of death/dying scenes and deaths that would
be seen to be both honorable and dishonorable. The last words of Julius Caesar
as presented by Suetonius are καὶ σὺ τέκνον; (“and you, child?”) (Jul. 82.3)
in response to Brutus’s attack. Suetonius seems to prefer an alternate account
where Caesar says nothing at his attack and thus utters no last words.56 Plutarch
52 Nepos, Epam. 9.3, trans. J. C. Rolfe, Cornelius Nepos, LCL 467 (Cambridge, MA: Harvard
University Press, 1984), 183.
53 Nepos, Phoc. 4.3, trans. Rolfe, LCL 467:237. Compare to Plutarch, Phoc. 36.1–4. The final
words are different and the account is more detailed, but the results are the same: honorable
death. Also note the similarities to Socrates, down to the death by hemlock.
54 We would also mention the dying words of Atticus as recorded by Nepos in his biography.
Nearing death from a bowel condition, Atticus called together some of his closest friends and
gave a speech concerning his health issues and the steps he had taken to be cured. He no longer
wished to “nourish [his] malady” and so he was going to cease eating and so bring about his
own end. He admonished them not to try and stop him. He ceased eating and died two days
later (Att. 21.5–6). Here, Atticus exercised power over the end of his life and faced death bravely
and on his own terms (suicide by self-starvation).
55 The treatment of the biographies from the earlier period is by no means exhaustive. An
exhaustive treatment of these texts could be useful in further research.
56 Suetonius, Jul. 82.2. It would seem that the effect here would be the same: Caesar re-
presents similar words, but directed at the first attacker Casca (Caes. 66.5).
Again, it is bravery in the face of a violent death that makes what could have been
a dishonorable death an honorable one. Caesar did not run and hide nor did he
cry and whimper when attacked. He defended himself as much as possible and
then died with dignity (Plutarch, Caes. 66.5–7; Suetonius, Jul. 82.2).
The death of Augustus Caesar, while peaceful, was no less honorable than that
of Julius Caesar. Suetonius presents Caesar’s final words as directed toward his
wife Livia, as the following: “Live mindful of our wedlock, Livia, and farewell.”57
The peaceful and controlled death of Augustus was reflective of the peace he
brought to the empire, and his supreme dignity was echoed in his final moments.
Claudius and Vespasian present a particular challenge. Claudius dies as the result
of poisoning and Suetonius presents no final words (Claud. 44.1–3). While later
divinized, one is left with the impression that Claudius’s end was in some way
payment for his marriage to Agrippina and his adoption of Nero as heir (43.1).
His attempts to repent from these sins (and many others) were too little too late,
and a “good man” (although this designation is debatable) died a less than noble
death.58 Vespasian’s dying words and circumstances are similarly troublesome.
After being afflicted with an aliment of the bowels, Vespasian, during an attack of
diarrhea, almost fainted. Sensing the end was near, he stated: “An emperor ought
to die standing,” and died as he was attempting to get to his feet.59 The con-
sponded to his death/attack bravely. In fact, Suetonius’s preference for no last words might be
as a result of wanting to avoid the potential disgrace found in the betrayal of Brutus. Compare
to the death/assassination of Pompey in Plutarch (Pomp. 79.1–4). Cf. Mark 14:43 and par., pas-
sages where Jesus seems to embrace his fate by walking toward it, which broadly conforms to
the pattern of noble death.
57 Suetonius, Aug. 99.1, trans. Rolfe, LCL 31:303. Just prior to this he had himself made
presentable, combed his hair, and called in his friends and asked if he had played his part well.
He stated: “Since well I’ve played my part, clap your hands and from the stage dismiss me with
applause.”
58 Claudius is a curious case. By Suetonius’s account Claudius was far from good and his
ascent to the throne is evidence enough of this (Claud. 10.1–4). Claudius was deified after death,
but Nero rescinded Claudius’s deification only to have it restored by Vespasian (Claud. 45.1).
His legacy is further questioned by Seneca in the Apocolocyntosis and if this satire is any indi-
cation, Claudius was understood as a terrible ruler and one who deserved an ignoble death
despite his later deification. See D. Fishwick, “The Deification of Claudius,” ClQ 52 (2002):
341–49; P. G. Bolt, The Cross from a Distance: Atonement in Mark’s Gospel, New Studies in
Biblical Theology 18 (Downers Gove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 2004), 163–64, for discussion of
the problems (and ridicule) associated with the deification of Claudius. Pliny the Younger notes
that Claudius’s deification was essentially a joke at Claudius’s own expense (Pan. 11.1).
59 Suetonius, Vesp. 24.1, trans. J. C. Rolfe, Suetonius, vol. 2, rev. ed., LCL 38 (Cambridge,
MA: Harvard University Press, 1997), 303. Suetonius also puts forth that Vespasian, at some
point near his death joked, “Woe’s me. Methinks I’m turning into a god” (vae, inquit, puto deus
fio) (Vesp. 23.4). We might contrast this with the negative words ascribed to Claudius by Seneca.
Here Seneca states that Claudius’s last words were, “Oh dear, oh dear! I think I have made a mess
of myself ” (vae me, puto, concacavi me) (Seneca, Apoc. 4, trans. W. H. D. Rouse in Petronius;
Seneca: Apocolocyntosis, trans. M. Heseltine and W. H. D. Rouse, rev. E. H. Warmington, corr.
ed., LCL 15 [Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1987], 447). These two dying episodes
nection between (unresolved sin/transgression) and a questionable death would

seem to be part of the tradition for Claudius, Vespasian, and Titus.60 Suetonius
puts forth that Titus contracted a fever that brought about the end of his life two
years and two months into his reign (Tit. 10.1–2; 11.1). Upon realizing that he
might not survive the fever, Titus looked up to the heavens and lamented that
his life was being taken from him even though he did not deserve such an end
(10.1–2). While there are no final words recorded, the lament of Titus and his
sense of injustice at his untimely death are explained by the fact that he had
but one (yet unknown) act for which he needed repentance (10.1).61 Both Titus
and Vespasian die under less than ideal circumstance but their legacies remain
untainted.62
Suetonius also presents a number of disgraceful deaths for the Caesars.
Tiberius died alone (possibly from poison) (Tib. 73.2); Caligula was assassinated
and Suetonius presents his last word as “Jupiter” (Cal. 58.2); Claudius was poi-
soned and uttered no last words (Claud. 44.2–3); Nero committed suicide with
the help of his secretary Epaphroditus with his last words being “Too late!” (sero)
and “This is fidelity!” (haec est fides) (Nero 49.3–4);63 Galba was assassinated
(Galb. 19.2); Vitellius begged for his life before being tortured and killed (Vit.
17.1–2); and Domitian was assassinated (Dom. 17.1–2).64 As Hope has argued,
the modality of death was less important than one’s reaction to that death.65 We
are contrasted through the honorable way that Vespasian sought to stand, and dignify himself,
while dying from diarrhea. Claudius passes gas, loudly, soils himself and dies. See H. S. Versnel,
Inconsistencies in Greek and Roman Religion, vol. 2: Transition and Reversal in Myth and Ritual,
2nd ed., SGRR 6 (Leiden: Brill, 1994), 207. Here both Vespasian and Jesus might be compared
on the grounds of the reversal of their own words. Vespasian is trying to die standing, but dies
in collapse. Jesus envisions a triumphant descent from the clouds (Mark 14:62) but dies lifted
up on the cross. See Grau, “How to Kill a Philosopher,” 354–58, where the reversal of one’s own
words is seen to be manifest in one’s death. Compare also a Jesus who dies lifted up over and
against Vespasian who dies failing to rise. See J. Marcus, “Crucifixion as Parodic Exaltation,”
JBL 125 (2006): 73–87, esp. 75–76 in reference to Artemidorus, Onir. 2.53. Here dreams of cru-
cifixion are interpreted (at least in part) as indicating future rule.
60 Vespasian was a lover of money (Suetonius, Vesp, 16.1–3) and Titus had a single unnamed
transgression (Tit. 10.1). Claudius’s death required less in the way of explanation as Suetonius
presents him as less than exemplary.
61 See Suetonius, Dom. 2.3.
62 There might be some apologetic features in Suetonius’s presentation of Titus (where his
death is a loss for all humanity [Tit. 10.1] and all of the people of Rome mourned his death
[11.1]) and Vespasian (Vesp. 9.1–19.1).
63 Trans. Rolfe, LCL 38:173.
64 Otho is recorded as having what would be seen as an honorable death (Suetonius, Otho
11.1–2) by suicide. His last words were adiciamus vitae et hanc noctem (“Let us add this one
more night to our life”) (11.1, trans. Rolfe, LCL 38:235). A comparison between Plutarch and
Suetonius on the manner of Galba’s death might be of interest. Plutarch seems to be more for-
giving/complementary of Galba and presents him as taking his assassination in an honorable
way (Galb. 27.1–2). His death can also be compared to that of Cicero (Plutarch, Cic. 48.2–4).
65 Hope, Roman Death, 64.
could compare the assassinations of Julius Caesar with those of Caligula, Galba,
Vitellius, and Domitian. The mode was essentially the same, but the reaction and
subsequent view of the death by others was not. One’s death, ideally, matched
the kind of life one lived. However, in some circumstances, death and life were
out of sync and needed some explanation.
b. Plutarch’s Life of Cato Minor

Plutarch’s Parallel Lives are too significant and too immense to cover in full
here. For the purposes of this essay, we will focus on the closing scenes of the
life of Cato as it presents some significant challenges to the patterns we have
seen play out in Greco-Roman biography. On the last night of his life (with the
threat of Julius Caesar looming, and unwilling to live under Caesar’s rule or to
be pardoned by him), Cato the Younger committed suicide. However, the suicide
did not go according to plan, and what unfolded was a particularly gruesome
and undignified death. After dinner with friends and others (last supper), Cato
engaged in discussion and debate about the Stoic notion of freedom after which
he declared that he had made up his mind to end his life and thus take control
over the situation (Cat. Min. 67.1–2).66 Those gathered with Cato were despon-
dent at the news even though Cato tried to reassure them and take their minds
off the news. After going on a walk with friends after dinner, Cato retired to his
quarters to read Plato’s Phaedo (68.2; 70.1). After a time, he asked his servants to
bring him his sword, and when none would, he responded by hitting one of his
servants in the mouth.67 A little time later his sword was brought to him and after
dismissing everyone he stabbed himself (70.5).
The death of Cato at first glance would seem to be well within the scope of
noble death. The parallels to Socrates are striking. There are moments with
friends and loved ones, the reading of philosophical texts (Plato’s recounting
of the last moments of Socrates’s life, which Cato reads twice), the quiet philo-
sophical resolve to end one’s life and the victorious/defiant last words (νῦν ἐμός
εἰμι, “Now, I am my own master”) (70.1). Yet, we are left with “an awfully messy
suicide that does not go according to plan. The plan was, clearly, to reenact
Socrates’ sublime serenity, hence Cato’s reading of the Phaedo.”68 Upon stabbing
himself, Cato does not die but falls onto his couch, kicking over an abacus and
falling on the floor. The ruckus brings his son, servants, and friends who try to
66 Burridge, What Are the Gospels?, 161. By taking control of his own death, Cato would be
free.
67 Cato makes a short speech about his resolve to kill himself with (or without) his sword
(68.4–5). The result of the blow was a swollen hand for Cato. His swollen hand may have com-
plicated his ability to end his own life cleanly.
68 A. V. Zadorojnyi, “Cato’s Suicide in Plutarch,” ClQ 57 (2007): 216–30, 218. We might
compare this death with that of Phocion (Plutarch, Phoc. 35.1–36.4) as more indicative of a
Socratic death.
come to his aid. Cato’s physician tries to reposition Cato’s bowels (which had
come out as a result of the self-inflicted stab wound) and sew up the laceration.
Cato comes to, reopens the wounds with his hands, pulls his own bowels out
and dies (70.6). There is nothing peaceful or philosophical about this death. It is
violent, awkward, and potentially dishonorable.
Yet, Cato is remembered fondly. Burridge points out the profound trouble
here:
Plutarch has a moral problem: the principle of divine retribution dictates that bad men’s
lives and deaths show that crime does not pay and good men’s the reverse. An ignomin-
ious death after Cato’s apparent failure to stop the evil against which he has fought all
his life as to be balanced: “His attempt to prove that the good are rewarded, by relating
elaborate funerals for the unjustly afflicted, also seems contrived.”69
This contrivance is seen well in the ensuing episode where all the people of Utica
gather in honor of Cato and declare him to be benefactor and savior (εὐεργέτην
καὶ σωτῆρα, 71.1). The people continue to honor Cato even as Caesar (and
imminent danger) approaches. Caesar, too, laments the fact that he was unable
to pardon Cato before he took his own life (and so honors the death of Cato,
72.2). Further, Plutarch demonstrates the ultimate nobility of Cato through the
legacy of the honorable deaths of Cato’s children (74.1–4).70 While life and death
should be in agreement, there are times with the historical (and traditional)
record present issues for such consistencies. In these instances, some sort of
verification of a good/noble life is needed post-death in order to maintain the
honor of the subject.71
c. The Works of Tacitus, Philostratus, Lucian, Plotinus, and Diogenes Laertius
We would now turn our attention to some final examples of last/dying words in
later Greco-Roman biography. Tacitus presents the peaceful death of his father-
in-law Agricola (Agr. 45.3), and while there are no last/dying words recorded,
Tacitus intimates that Agricola faced his death with peace and bravery. This
would be contrasted with the pain and agony experienced by Agricola’s loved
ones and friends at his passing (43.1–2). The peaceful (noble) death of Agricola
is also compounded by the possibility that he was poisoned (presumably) by the
69 Burridge, What Are the Gospels?, 161. See Zadorojnyi, “Cato’s Suicide in Plutarch,” 226
for insight into Plutarch’s critique of Cato’s “philosophy.”
70 The questionable conduct/life of Cato’s son is rectified by his noble death (73.3). This is
somewhat the reverse for Cato. His awkward death is reinterpreted in light of his life and the
reactions of others post-death.
71 Compare Brutus’s reconsidering of suicide as an acceptable exit (Plutarch, Brut. 40.7–9)
to his previous position and his reversal of view on the impious and unmanly act of Cato’s
suicide (ὡς οὐχ ὅσιον οὐδʼ ἀνδρός) (40.7). The irony here is in the fact that Brutus may have
required help in his own suicide (52.8), which would have been seen as an act of cowardice. See
Zadorojnyi, “Cato’s Suicide in Plutarch,” 218.
order of Domitian.72 Here, Agricola fits the broad paradigm of noble death and
even more so if he faces his end at the hand of an unjust tyrant with valor.
Apollonius of Tyana’s last words (at least as related by his disciple Damis)
are found in a short discourse recorded by Philostratus (Vit. Apoll. 8.28.1).73 Be-
fore sending Damis on a fool’s errand (of sorts), Apollonius says, “Even when
you seek wisdom by yourself, Damis, observe me.”74 The admonition here is
for Damis to use Apollonius as a philosophical guide even after he is gone.
After Apollonius sends Damis off, Philostratus offers a number of variations of
Apollonius’s death narrative.75 Apollonius transcends the kinds of painful and/
or embarrassing deaths attributed to other philosophers and his end is fitting for
a figure that is presented as being closer to divine than human.76 Like other noble
deaths, Demonax (the subject of Lucian), upon realizing that he was too infirm
to be free and independent, decided to starve himself to death (Lucian, Demon.
65).77 As he was nearing death, questions arose as to his burial. Demonax’s first
response was to say, “Don’t borrow trouble! The stench [of his dead body] will get
me buried!”78 When questioned about the disgrace of not being buried and thus
being left as carrion for wild animals, Demonax replied, “I see nothing out of the
way in it … even in death I am going to be of service to living things.”79 Demonax
departs exerting control over his own death and with wise and humorous words.
The death of Demonax might be compared to that of Alexander of Abonoteichos.
Alexander, also the subject of Lucian, experienced a death that was also in-line
with the life he lived. The negative biography of Alexander the False Prophet
served as an exposé of Alexander with the specific purpose of writing being one
of bringing to light the unscrupulous life of Alexander.80 Lucian goes so far as to
write: “… I am devoting my energy to such an end, to the exploits of a man who
does not deserve to have polite people read about him, but rather to have the
72 This is not entirely clear from the text, but the implication would seem to be that Domi-
tian was responsible for the poisoning (if it indeed occurred). See Tacitus, Agr. 43.1–2.
73 Philostratus, Vit. Apoll. 8.30.1–3.
74 Philostratus, Vit. Apoll. 8.28.1, trans. Jones, LCL 17:417.
75 These narratives range from a natural death (8.30.1) to a disappearance (8.30.2) to an
ascension from earth to heaven (8.30.2–3).
76 See 1.4.1–1.5.1 as evidence of the miraculous (divine) birth of Apollonius where he is
understood to be the incarnation of the Egyptian god Proteus.
77 For death by starvation in the philosophical tradition see Grau, “How to Kill a Philos-
opher,” 362–63.
78 Lucian, Demon. 66, trans. A. M. Harmon, Lucian, vol. 1, LCL 14 (London: Heinemann;
New York: Macmillan, 1913), 173.
79 Trans. Harmon, LCL 14:173. Ironically, Demonax’s desire for a simple treatment of his
body after death is ignored by the people of Athens who throw him an elaborate funeral, ac-
cording to Lucian (Demon. 67). See Marcus, “Crucifixion as Parodic Exaltation,” 75. Here, in
Artemidorus, Onir. 2.53, dreams of the poor of crucifixion represent offering nourishment to
others and “social elevation.”
80 Lucian, Alex. 1–2; A. M. Harmon, trans., Lucian, vol. 4, LCL 162 (London: Heinemann;
New York: Macmillan, 1925), 175–77.
motley crowd in a vast amphitheater see him torn to pieces by foxes or apes.”81
Lucian’s concern is to not write the life of such an individual so that it will not
remain in perpetuity. While he appeals to the work of Arrian as such an example
of a negative biography, ultimately, the unworthiness of his subject is found in
the undignified death he suffers via a gangrenous leg.82 While there are no final
words recorded, the nature of Alexander’s death is condemnation enough of the
life he lived.83
Following in the well-established tradition of noble death for a philosopher,
Plotinus uttered these last words to his disciple Eustochius: “Try to bring back
the god in us to the divine in the All!”84 While these words are somewhat ob-
scure, Most’s rendering of them as a call by Plotinus to Eustochius to continue
in the act/study of philosophy even at the death of his teacher (Plotinus) makes
sense given the context.85 Thus, Plotinus stands in the tradition of Apollonius,
Demonax, and Socrates (to a degree) by offering philosophical words, teachings
or admonitions at death.86 As discussed previously in connection with Zeno of
Elea and Anaxarchus of Abdera, this adherence to philosophical truth, even at
death, is an integral element of the noble death of philosophers.
3. Summary
The examination of the theme of noble death and last/dying words in Greco-
Roman biography has yielded some important observations. First, the modality
of death is not necessarily indicative of the quality of death. One could die in
any number of ways, but one’s approach to that death was key to the nobility of
the death. Second, Socrates, and Augustus Caesar serve as exemplars of noble
death. Socrates’s death becomes paradigmatic for the death of the just in the face
of injustice. The fact that his death is emulated (to varying degrees of success)
in the biographical tradition is significant. Augustus’s peaceful death becomes
the paradigm for the death of the ideal leader/ruler. His death surpasses that of
Julius Caesar, in terms of honor/nobility, and is never repeated in the deaths of
the Caesars subsequently recorded by Suetonius. Third, deaths that are incon-
81 Alex. 2, trans. Harmon, LCL 162:177.
82 Lucian references the biography of Tillorobus by Arrian, but it is no longer extant. See
Alex. 2 and 59.
83 Even though this is not expressly stated by Lucian, a point of comparison might lie in the
kinds of “oracles” given by Alexander (“Seek no more for assistance against thy bitter affliction;
death now standeth in view; ’tis beyond thy power to ’scape him”; Alex. 28, trans. Harmon, LCL
162:215) and his eventual end (which also revealed his baldness in a rather undignified way as
well; Alex. 59–60). See Grau, “How to Kill a Philosopher,” 347–54.
84 Porphyry, Vit. Plot. 2.25, trans. A. H. Armstrong, Plotinus, vol. 1: Porphyry on Plotinus
and Ennead I, rev. ed., LCL 440 (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1989), 7.
85 Most, “Plotinus’ Last Words,” esp. 581–83.
86 See Most, “Plotinus’ Last Words,” 586–87 for intertextual connections between Plotinus’s
death scene and that of Socrates.
gruent with the life of the subject (Cato the Younger and perhaps Vespasian and
Titus) require some sort of explanation within the narrative itself. Finally, the
last/dying words of the individual should be reflective of the death (and life) of
the individual and any such discrepancies between last words and life would also
require some explanation.
D. Jesus’s Last Words in Mark 15:34 and the

Greco-Roman Biographical Tradition
The difficult nature of Jesus’s last/dying words from the cross in Mark 15:34 is
well documented.87 That there are literary parallels and intertextuality between
Psalm 22 (21 LXX) is clear, and the words of Jesus in Mark 15:34 are taken
from that literary tradition.88 While it may be unclear just what version of that
tradition forms the basis for the wording of Mark 15:34, the literary connection
itself is unquestionable.89 The meaning or purpose of the use of Ps 22:2 (21:2
LXX) is of interest here. The cry of dereliction, Ελωι ελωι λεμα σαβαχθανι; ὅ
ἐστιν μεθερμηνευόμενον Ὁ θεός μου ὁ θεός μου, εἰς τί ἐγκατέλιπές με; (“My
God, my God, for what reason [why] have you abandoned me?”) creates a
significant break with both the traditions of noble death found in the Jewish
martyrdom traditions (1 Macc 6:43–46; 2 Macc 6:18–31; 7:1–42; 14:37–46; 4
87 An excellent survey of this issue, particularly the author of Mark’s use of Psalm 22 can be
found in Carey, Jesus’ Cry from the Cross, 13–22. See also, H. Gese, “Psalm 22 und das Neuen
Testament: Der älteste Bericht vom Tode Jesu und die Entstehung des Herrenmahles,” in idem,
Vom Sinai zum Zion: Alttestamentliche Beiträge zur biblischen Theologie, BEvT 64 (München:
Kaiser, 1974), 180–201; J. H. Reumann, “Psalm 22 at the Cross: Lament and Thanksgiving for
Jesus Christ,” Int 28 (1974): 39–58; J. L. Mays, “Prayer and Christology: Psalm 22 as Perspective
on the Passion,” ThTo 42 (1985): 322–31; L. Caza, Mon Dieu, pourqoi m’as-tu abandonné?, Re-
cherches n. s. 24 (Montréal: Bellarmin, 1989); V. K. Robbins, “The Reversed Contextualization
of Psalm 22 in the Markan Crucifixion: A Socio-Rhetorical Analysis,” in The Four Gospels 1992:
Festschrift Frans Neirynck, ed. F. Van Segbroeck, BETL 100 (Leuven: Leuven University Press
and Peeters, 1992), 1161–83; R. E. Brown, The Death of the Messiah: From Gethsemane to the
Grave; A Commentary on the Passion Narratives of the Four Gospels, 2 vols., ABRL (New York:
Doubleday, 1994); and T. Thatcher, “(Re)Mark(s) on the Cross,” BibInt 4 (1996): 346–62.
88 See Brown, Death of the Messiah, 2:1051–54; Yarbro Collins, Mark, 732–35; 753–54; and
Carey, Jesus’s Cry from the Cross, 139–70. See Garrison, Why Are You Silent, 68, for connections
between Mark’s passion narrative and Wis 2:12–20. Carey (Jesus’ Cry from the Cross, 116–17)
makes similar connections.
89 Psalm 22 in Hebrew (21 in the LXX) are the traditions under consideration here. The
words themselves would appear to be Aramaic as presented in Mark. However, it is not clear
that the author of Mark is familiar with Aramaic or Hebrew. Thus, usage of Psalm 21 in the
LXX would be most likely source for Jesus’s last words in Mark. See the helpful, if not exhaus-
tive, work of K. S. O’Brien, The Use of Scripture in the Markan Passion Narrative, LNTS 384
(London: T&T Clark, 2010), 283–84, and 204, where O’Brien notes that the origin of the words
in Mark 15:34 conform neither to the MT or LXX in full. See also B. D. Lerner, “Untangling
σαβαχθανι (Matt 27:46 and Mark 15:34),” NovT 56 (2014): 196–97.
Macc 5:1–38) and in the traditions of noble death in the Greco-Roman con-

text. The defiant words in the face of an unjust death are conspicuously absent
from Mark’s passion narrative.90 The tradition of remaining silent in the face
of unjust death is found in Mark 15:1–4, where Jesus offers minimal response
to Pilate’s charges and then remains silent.91 Yet, Pilate is “amazed” at Jesus’s
lack of a speech of defense, further suggesting a break with the Greco-Roman
tradition of noble death and the traditions found in biography/biographical
literature. It could be argued that a speech given in defense is itself a means
through which a biographer seeks to rehabilitate a disappointing end or death
for their subject. If the death of the subject does not match the goodness of
their life, something must be said (or done) in the biography to correct this.
The speech of defense would be integral to this reorientation within the narra-
tive. We get no such reorientation in the Gospel of Mark, at least not in the
form of a speech offered by Jesus on his own behalf. If a speech were not given,
then some other narrative feature would be needed to reorient the audience in
light of a potentially ignoble death.
1. Reading and Hearing Psalm 22 in the Greco-Roman (Biographical) Context

Given the textual interplay between Psalm 22 (21 LXX) and the whole of Mark 15,
the question arises: “How would a first-century reader/hearer of Mark under-
stand Jesus’s words from the cross?”92 Both Carey and O’Brien offer interesting
insights here. First, Carey suggests that the audience of Mark may be broken
down into two categories: readers and hearers of the text.93 The interpretative
issues between these two audience groups are key to understanding Mark’s use
of Psalm 22. The readers of the text are presumed to be in a better position to
recognize the connections that Mark makes to Psalm 22.94 Carey argues: “Once
again, given the context of the reading of the gospels in the first century (wor-
ship) and the evidence within Mark itself (13.14), it is likely that these readers
not only read the text, but provided interpretation and explanation for the
90 One might make an argument for Jesus’s words in 14:62 as defiant but their placement
here at the trial before the temple aristocracy and apart from his death in chapter 15, move these
words outside of the context of last/dying words.
91 This might compare in some way to the deaths of Julius Caesar and Pompey (Suetonius,
Jul. 82.2; Plutarch, Pomp. 79.1–4). Cf. Plutarch, Alex. 76.1–77.3 with Arrian, Anab. 7.26.3. Al-
exander’s silence due to sickness contrasts with the voluntary silence of Caesar and Pompey.
92 J. Marcus, The Way of the Lord: Christological Exegesis of the Old Testament in the Gospel
of Mark (Louisville, KY: Westminster John Knox Press, 1992), 172–82; and O’Brien, Use of
Scripture, 139–70. See Brown, Death of the Messiah, 2:1043–51, for discussion of the meaning
of Jesus’s last words.
93 Carey, Jesus’ Cry from the Cross, 24–25. See also H. Y. Gamble, Books and Readers in the
Early Church: A History of Early Christian Texts (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1995),
141.
94 Carey, Jesus’ Cry from the Cross, 24–25.
audience as well.”95 Carey’s point here is that not all of the hearers of Mark would
have been able to make the connection between Jesus’s words from the cross
and Psalm 22. Someone was required to interpret and expand on the relevance
of the words within the larger context of Psalm 22 in order for the deeper (and
potentially triumphant) meaning of Jesus’s words to be understood.96 While this
is an important corrective for readings (and in this case hearing and interpre-
tation) within Christian communities, what effect would be had by the words on
a reading or listening audience that lacked the specific interpretative capabilities
needed to access the meaning of Psalm 22? While we may envisage the primary
audience of Mark to have been Christian (of some sort) we should also consider
the possibility that larger audiences (perhaps non-Christian) might have been
imagined as well.97 Is it possible then, that something other than a reliance on
readers with scriptural competency (and presumably conversant in Jewish texts)
would be necessary to interpret the troubling words of Jesus in Mark 15:34?
Similarly, O’Brien notes that, “the ancients often read in community, not
alone, as modern readers tend to do.”98 Furthermore, “One need not think of
each member of the original audience reading Mark at her own desk and catch-
ing and relishing sophisticated literary allusions to Scripture. Instead, one might
think of an original community that was taught to see the allusions.”99 The in-
formed reader would then be able to make the necessary important connections
and share them with others.100 The concept of interpretation taking place within
community is an important one, yet, there is no guarantee that effective interpre-
tation would take place. Some members of the community would base effective
interpretation on a presumed familiarity with Psalm 22. O’Brien recognizes
95 Carey, Jesus’ Cry from the Cross, 24–25. See also O’Brien, Use of Scripture, 60–66 and R. B.
Hays, Echoes of Scripture in the Letters of Paul (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1989).
96 Carey, Jesus’ Cry from the Cross, 25.
97 There is evidence to suggest that secondary audiences would have been quite possible,
especially for ancient biographies. See J. M. Smith, Why βίος? On the Relationship Between Gos-
pel Genre and Implied Audience, LNTS 518 (London: Bloomsbury T&T Clark, 2015), 146–86.
98 O’Brien, Use of Scripture, 64.
99 O’Brien, Use of Scripture, 64. Here, Mark 15 could be read (heard) in multiple ways by
various members of the audience. For a reader/hearer familiar with Psalm 22, there would be
the possibility of being drawn into the whole of Psalm 22 including the rejection and despair of
the psalmist (22:1–18), which would conform to the last words of Jesus from the cross in Mark,
as well as the vindication of the psalmist (22:19–31), which would conform to the resurrection/
empty tomb of Mark 16:1–8. Mark 15 can be understood without knowing Psalm 22 (this
would also fit with the many other references to the Psalms in Mark). However, a certain depth
of meaning and literary connection is experienced with such an understanding of the under-
lying source materials. See R. B. Hays, Reading Backwards: Figural Christology and the Fourfold
Gospel Witness (Waco, TX: Baylor University Press, 2014), 42.
100 O’Brien (Use of Scripture, 64) notes that “reader-recognition” was an important element
in the Greco-Roman world. Here, she points to the work of Demetrius (Eloc. 222) where leaving
something open-ended in a text invites the reader to use his/her own intelligence to make sense
of the text.
that Mark’s gospel was problematic and his allusions to scripture required some
nuancing as is evidenced by the reworking of Markan allusions by Matthew and
Luke.101 However, what happens when there is no one within the community to
make the deeper connections? What happens when the wrong connections are
made? Would there be a need for something to be included in the narrative as
a means to establish an interpretative reference apart from an understanding of
scriptural allusion?
2. Jesus’s Last/D ying Words in Mark 15:34 as Departure

from Ideal/Noble Death
How would a first-century Greco-Roman audience have heard Jesus’s words
from the cross? It may be impossible to know the answer for certain, but we
would suggest that these words would have been problematic for those unfamil-
iar with Psalm 22, and that they would have needed some explanation (either
through interpretation by a reader or from the narrative context). Carey draws
out the contrast between a “contextual reading” of Psalm 22 in Mark 15.34 and
an “atomistic” reading.102 Here, a “contextual reading” envisages the whole of
Psalm 22 where the cry of dereliction by Jesus is intended (by Mark) to draw the
reader into both the suffering and vindication of the protagonist of Psalm 22 and,
by extension, Jesus.103 An “atomistic” reading only envisages the specific verse
(Ps 22:2 MT; 21:2 LXX) spoken by Jesus and holds no hope of vindication as
expressed later in the Psalm (22:23–32).104 However, these debates are centered
on an audience’s nuanced understanding of Psalm 22 as central to interpreting
Jesus’s words.
Mark’s narrative is puzzling as it relates to Jesus’s own approach to death.
Beginning in chapter 8, Mark has Jesus predict his own suffering and death a
minimum of three times (8:31–32; 9:30–32; and 10:32–34). These predictions
culminate in the more elaborate formulation of 10:32–34. Jesus and his dis-
ciples will move spatially toward Jerusalem (10:33); he will be handed over to
the temple aristocracy (10:33); he will be sentenced to death (10:33); he will
be handed to the Gentiles (10:33); he will be mocked, spit upon, flogged, and
killed (10:34); and he will rise in three days (10:34). There is little to suggest a
deep sense of despair or agitation on the part of Jesus. In some ways, the Markan
Jesus at 10:32–34 demonstrates an approach to death that is much more in line
with the Greco-Roman biographical tradition of noble death. There is a sense
of acceptance of fate/will (for lack of better words) on the part of Jesus here.
His suffering and death are coming, and Jesus does not seek to move from that
101 O’Brien, Use of Scripture, 62. See also Carey, Jesus’ Cry from the Cross, 176–88.
102 Carey, Jesus’ Cry from the Cross, 2–3, and 6–22 on the history of this debate.
103 Carey, Jesus’ Cry from the Cross, 2–5.
104 Carey, Jesus’ Cry from the Cross, 2–5. See also Gundry, Mark, 947–51.
path, and his continued move toward Jerusalem is indicative of bravery in the
face of suffering and death.105 Furthermore, Mark 10:45 indicates a Jesus who
understands his death to have an important meaning (λύτρον ἀντὶ πολλῶν,
“ransom for many”). This understanding of the Markan Jesus’s death as having
a farther-reaching importance would fit both within the martyrdom tradition
of Maccabees (2 Macc 7:37–38; 8:3–4) and perhaps even in the philosophical
tradition of Socrates (Plato, Apol. 30b–d).106
If we are able to grant that the Jesus of Mark 10 (as well as the Jesus of chs.
11–13) demonstrates little to no sense of trepidation at his pending suffering and
death, what are we to do with the Jesus of Mark 14–15? The scene of Jesus’s last
supper (14:12–30) could conform in part to the Greco-Roman expectation of
“dying well.”107 This “good death” could include the following:
One should be at home, or at least with one’s loved ones, and one should be brave and
resolute and utter some wise or witty parting words. A close relative, preferably a mother
or spouse, would then catch the final breath with a kiss, before closing the eyes and calling
aloud the name of the deceased (the conclamatio).108
Here, at the supper, Jesus is gathered around his “loved ones” as he prepares
for his end.109 However, Mark 14:32–42 signals a break in Jesus’s peaceful
preparations for death with his experience in the Garden of Gethsemane. Here
the Markan Jesus is “deeply grieved, even to the point of death” (14:34).110 This
is a departure from the controlled (and resolute?) Jesus of Mark 8–13. This also
forms a troubling contrast with the Jesus of Mark 8–10 who understands that
his suffering and death is immanent and purposeful. This deep grief breaks
with the Greco-Roman ideal of calm resignation in the face of death.111 Luke’s
reworking of this scene may be indicative of an attempt to re-orient the Markan
Jesus to an expression that was more ideal.112 Jesus’s resolve seems to be restored
post-Gethsemane, and this resolve carries him through his betrayal (14:43–50),
105 See Marcus, Way of The Lord, 172–82, for discussion of Jesus as a “Righteous Sufferer”;
and Carey, Jesus’ Cry from the Cross, 94–125. Jesus’s exertion of control over his own death
would fit very well within the context of noble death. See the discussion of Atticus, Cato the
Younger and Demonax above.
106 See Aristotle, Eth. nic. 9.8.7–9, 1169a12–30.
109 See the death of Augustus as the ideal representation of death/final moments (Suetonius,
Aug. 99.1–2).
110 Mark would also seem to be drawing upon the traditions of Psalms 42 and 43 here. The
connections to these traditions can also be seen in Mark 15:16–20, 25–32.
111 Hope (Roman Death, 50) notes: “A man was regarded as fortunate if he gave up life
calmly (placide).”
112 Cf. Luke 22:39–46. See G. E. Sterling, “Mors Philosophi: The Death of Jesus in Luke,”
HTR 94 (2001): 383–402; and K. R. Iverson, “The Present Tense of Performance: The Imme-
diacy and Transformative Power in Luke’s Passion,” in From Text to Performance: Narrative
and Performance Criticism in Dialogue and Debate, ed. idem, BPC 10 (Eugene, OR: Cascade,
the trials before the temple aristocracy (14:53–65) and Pilate (15:1–15), and his
mocking and beating (15:16–20). The Jesus of Mark 14 and 15 exhibits some of
the characteristics of noble death (a last meal and/or time spent with loved ones
and the brave encounter with unjust conviction), but he departs significantly in
the garden (14:32–42).113
It is at this point that the words from the cross (15:34) as Jesus’s last/dying
words become significant as another break with the Greco-Roman pattern of
“good death.” We would not argue against Carey’s assertion that the writer of
Mark intends for his audience (however large and diverse we might reconstruct
it) to connect Jesus to the suffering and vindicated protagonist of Psalm 22.114
Here both the reading of the particular verse (Ps 22:2) and the entirety of the
Psalm are imagined so that Jesus is both rejected (abandoned) and vindicat-
ed. If we take seriously the actual words attributed to Jesus by Mark, we are
confronted with a Jesus that feels and expresses abandonment at the point of
death.115 There are now no loved ones gathered around him (they have been
replaced by the mockers and passers-by, 15:25–32), there is no one to gather
his last breath (15:37) and no one to call his name.116 Jesus’s words ὁ θεός μου ὁ
θεός μου, εἰς τί ἐγκατέλιπές με; are far from peaceful and resigned. They are far
from philosophical. The loud cry made at death is also problematic (15:37).117
The connection to Psalm 22 would have to be sufficient for some as a means
through which to understand the desperation and hope of the Markan Jesus’s
final moments, but this would have rung strangely for others. Jesus dies a bad
death from the Greco-Roman perspective and it demands explanation.
Jesus’s bad death, as incongruent with the good life expressed by Mark,
required more than allusion as a way of explanation. In some sense, Jesus’s death
would be similar to the incongruent deaths of Cato the Younger (and perhaps,
Vespasian and Titus). Cato’s embarrassing and messy death was rectified by
his declaration as savior (Plutarch, Cat. Min. 71.1) by the people of Utica and
the posthumous pardon afforded him by Caesar. His subsequent funeral and
2014), 131–57, esp. 142–47. See also Brown, Death of the Messiah, 1:187–89 for connections
between Jesus in the garden in Luke and the martyrs of Maccabees.
113 Note the philosophical response of Jesus at 14:48–49. He notes that he poses no threat
and yet has been approached with weapons. Further, there is the resolve that “the scriptures be
fulfilled” (14:49). The garden scene and the words from the cross depart from the traditions of
noble death and dying. Jesus’s outbursts (for lack of better terms) are a significant departure
from the ideal.
114 Carey, Jesus’ Cry from the Cross, 26.
115 See M. S. Rindge, “Reconfiguring the Akedah and Recasting God: Lament and Divine
Abandonment in Mark,” JBL 131 (2012): 755–74.
116 The women mentioned there by Mark are at a distance and one might wonder what role
they serve, if something other as indicative of potential eyewitnesses (15:40–41).
117 See F. W. Danker, “The Demonic Secret in Mark: A Reexamination of the Cry of Dere-
liction (15,34),” ZNW 61 (1970): 48–69, for an interesting but unconvincing explanation for the
cry from the cross.
treatment after death rehabilitate his dishonorable (bad) death. Likewise, the
questionable deaths of Vespasian and Titus are mitigated by the honors and
treatment they received after death. Is it possible that Mark also mitigates Jesus’s
difficult death with the events that follow? Jesus has no loved ones to declare his
name at death, but Mark has the Roman centurion declare Jesus’s divine son-
ship (15:39).118 Jesus has no one to catch his last breath with a kiss, but Mark has
the temple curtain tearing in two at the last breath of Jesus (15:38), signaling a
divine portent (presumably). Jesus’s subsequent burial and resurrection (16:6 –
empty tomb as resurrection in the extant ending to Mark) further reinterprets
the death on the cross (itself shameful) and the troubling words of Jesus from
the cross.119 Jesus’s death is re-oriented from within the narrative by Mark. The
words from the foot of the cross by the centurion (like the declaration of the
people of Utica for Cato) and the resurrection (like the honors given to Cato and
others post-death) reinterpret Jesus’s death as honorable and re-contextualize
his death within the larger scope of his life and vindication. Jesus’s death is not a
bad death, but a noble (if not difficult) and fitting death given the entire context
of his life as presented by Mark.120
E. Conclusions and Observations
Life expectancy in the Roman empire was 40–50 years (if one survived child-
hood).121 One way to encounter the inevitability of death was to die in a good
or noble manner. Noble death was not restricted to the famous or infamous; to
the philosopher, the warrior or king. All could and should desire a good death.
Tyranny and injustice could place one in a position to be denied a noble death.
But, even in the face of tyranny, if one held to one’s convictions and faced death
118 See K. R. Iverson, “A Centurion’s ‘Confession’: A Performance-Critical Analysis of

Mark 15:39,” JBL 130 (2011): 329–50, esp. 336–42. The point here is not to argue for the his-
toricity of the statement of the centurion. Rather, it is the force of the statement as re-orienting
within the scope of Mark’s biography of Jesus that is the importance. As Iverson notes, “not only
is a Gentile the first to enter the new temple made without hands (11:12–25; 12:1–12; 14:58),
but it is a ranking member of the Roman army who affirms that the true son of God is Jesus and
not Caesar” (342). See E. S. Johnson, Jr., “Is Mark 15.39 the Key to Mark’s Christology?,” JSNT
31 (1987): 3–22, esp. 8–13, for questions concerning the likelihood that a Roman Centurion
would make such a confession, historically; A. Yarbro Collins, “Mark and His Readers: The Son
of God Among Greeks and Romans,” HTR 93 (2000): 85–100.
119 Cf. Mark 15:34 with Luke 23:46 and John 19:25–30. Here Jesus’s last words are replaced
with words that seem far more peaceful and resigned and words that would have been more
congruent (presumably) with good/noble death and dying.
120 Given the theological nature of Mark’s gospel, it could also be suggested that God
even accepts Jesus non-noble death. Theologically speaking, God in Mark is not interested in
adhering to Greco-Roman standards of noble death and dying.
121 Hope, Roman Death, 42–43.
bravely, a noble death was still possible. The tradition of noble death in the
Greco-Roman cultural milieu can be traced back to the lives (and deaths) of
philosophers (in particular the exemplar of Socrates) as well as to the works
Euripides and Demosthenes.122 Here the foundations were laid for what it was
to die well. Admittedly, many of the examples cited here are the extremes and
few died under such noble circumstances. But that is why such examples were
needed: in the face of death, knowing that a good life would (should) lead to
a good death was comforting to the individual and to their loved ones and as-
sociates.
Last and dying words confirmed the good, or in some cases not so good,
death. It was the moment when the dying imparted their final thoughts and
these thoughts reflected their experience with death. The philosophical words of
Socrates; the peaceful words of Augustus; the witty words of Demonax; and the
final teachings of Plotinus all highlighted not only the peaceful and ideal death
of the individual and also signaled the culmination of a good life. Good life and
good death went hand in hand. But what do we make of bad deaths? Often, bad
deaths were seen as the culmination of a bad life (Lucian, Alex. 59–60).123 Those
who had lived poorly died in painful and embarrassing ways and the death fit
the life. But how is one to interpret a bad death when it is an anomaly in the life
of a good person? In these instances, biographers would often look to explain
the bad death in light of some unresolved issue or transgression and that the bad
death somehow brought resolution. At other times, the death went unresolved
and the post-death narratives provided resolution. Praise, adulation, extravagant
funerals, national honors and the like were used to rehabilitate the embarrassing
deaths of good people. In this way the embarrassing or ignoble death was not the
final destination, but a detour.
The writer of the Gospel of Mark had the difficult task of making sense of the
bad/ignoble death of Jesus, “Son of God” (cf. 1:1; 1:11; 9:7; and 15:39). Not only
was the methodology shameful (the death on the cross as a criminal/usurper to
Roman Imperial power), but also Jesus’s cry from the cross would have seemed
to be at odds with his own understanding of his suffering and death (8:31–32;
9:30–32; and 10:32–34, 44) and at odds with remaining resolute in the face of
death. Like other biographers, Mark connects Jesus to an exemplar, but it is not
Socrates or another figure readily available to the Greco-Roman experience, but
the righteous and vindicated sufferer of Psalm 22. Jesus’s death is in fact a good
death, a righteous death, and he, like the sufferer of Psalm 22, will be vindicat-
ed.124 However, Mark also included narrative elements in the post-death scenes
that further re-oriented the reader/listener to the nobility of Jesus’s death. Mark
123 Grau, “How to Kill a Philosopher,” 347–54.
124 In effect, Mark presents Jesus’s death in a way that simultaneously challenges Greco-
Roman expectations (crucifixion, problematic words at death, etc.) and upholds them (the
did not rely the metaleptic use of Psalm 22 alone.125 Instead, he coupled it with
the apotheosis of the centurion (15:39) and the vindication of the empty tomb
(16:6).126 Mark crafted the narrative in such a way as to have it reinterpret it-
self. This has the advantage of presenting a death of Jesus that would resonate
(in some way) with those familiar with the text and context of Psalm 22 and
those familiar with noble death and dying. These two interpretative lenses are
not mutually exclusive and both would serve complex and diverse first-century
audience groups. The hope here is for continued engagement with the gospel
texts through the interpretative matrix of Greco-Roman biography. So that, if we
are to take seriously the assertion that the gospels are in fact examples of ancient
biography, that assertion would continue to shape/re-shape how we read and
interpret the gospels.
Actio according to Quintilian
(Institutio oratoria 11.3)
and the Performance of the Gospel of Mark
Geert Van Oyen
A. Introduction
It is generally accepted that the individual writings of the NT must be under-

stood in their oral culture. This insight originated at the end of the twentieth
century and it differs from precedent nineteenth-century theories on orality that
were looking for oral sources as the basic tradition for the written gospels. The
focus switched to the role the media (spoken and written language) played as
specific means of communication.1 The attention for this communicative aspect
of the biblical stories originated together with the growing idea that there exists
no great divide between orality and literacy.2 István Czachesz states: “Orality
and literacy could have existed side by side and perhaps interacted from the very
beginning.”3 This observation leads to many uncertainties about the exact way
1 K. R. Iverson, “Orality and the Gospels: A Survey of Recent Research,” CurBR 8 (2009):
71–106; N. A. Elder, “New Testament Media Criticism,” CurBR 15 (2017): 315–37.
2 Biblical scholars mostly have in mind the discussions related to biblical texts, but the
mixture of literacy and orality is a much wider cultural phenomenon that, e. g., is also true with
regard to the classical rhetorical situations. See M. Fox, “Rhetoric and Literature at Rome,” in
A Companion to Roman Rhetoric, ed. W. Dominik and J. Hall (Malden, MA: Wiley Blackwell,
2007), 369–81, 370: “Rhetoric in the ancient world was experienced primarily in the context of
a live performance, a form of communication that presupposes an interaction between speaker
and audience. Literature, on the other hand, often revolved around a private act of reading.
The contrast, however, should be thought of as a fluid spectrum rather than a polarity. Much
‘literature’ was also read out loud …, and it is clear that speeches delivered in the courts or
senate house were written down in order to be read.” For more literature on the interrelatedness
of orality and writing in other cultures, see J. M. Foley, The Singer of Tales in Performance,
Voices in Performance and Text (Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press, 1995), 66–78,
R. Finnegan, Literacy and Orality: Studies in the Technology of Communication (Oxford: Black-
well, 1988); D. M. Carr, Writing on the Tablet of the Heart: Origins of Scripture and Literature
(Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2005); H. E. Hearon, “The Interplay between Written and
Spoken Word in the Second Testament as Background to the Emergence of Written Gospels,”
Oral Tradition 25 (2010): 57–74.
3 I. Czachesz, “The Transmission of Early Christian Thought: Toward a Cognitive Psycho-
logical Model,” SR 36 (2007): 65–83, 67, with reference to P. J. J. Botha, “Cognition, Orality-
Literacy, and Approaches to First Century Writings,” in Orality, Literacy, and Colonialism in
Antiquity, ed. J. A. Draper, SemeiaSt 47 (Atlanta: SBL, 2004), 37–63.
336 Geert Van Oyen
the gospels were composed and written down.4 Scholars are operating in a gray
zone. Indeed, it is not difficult to imagine in general the existence of a society in
which orality and literacy were completely mixed. Even our society today mixes
orality and literacy in very different and complex ways. However, it is almost
impossible to reconstruct how this mixture concretely worked out in the case of
the origin and composition of the gospels two thousand years ago. It is against
this background of a mixed oral-aural-written ancient culture that I would like
to present this contribution on the performance of the gospel of Mark in light
of contemporary ideas of performance in Roman rhetoric and more specifically
of delivery.
I am aware that the topic of the performance of the gospels in the first century
is a very questionable one and that it is not sure when, where, and how such
performances may have occurred and if they involved delivery of the gospel as
a whole. Still, I think that it makes sense to learn as much as possible about
oral communication in the 1st c. CE, in order to understand what could have
happened when parts of the gospel were orally transmitted.5 This article is thus
partly a hypothetical mind-game, but, I hope, a useful and meaningful one.
Actually, interest in antiquity is only half of the background of this con-
tribution. Research on orality and performance has also to do with the “prak-
tisches Interesse” and the “Verwendungsmöglichkeiten der Exegese,” as Sönke
Finnern and Jan Rüggemeier call it in their newest book on methodology of
the NT exegesis.6 Their following short remark on the communication of the
gospel in modern situations is of major importance: “Die actio als eigener
‘Methodenschritt’ ist nicht zu unterschätzen.”7 This remark is motivated by the
observation that the gospel is orally transmitted in liturgy, homily, and perform-
ance, of which – I add – performance of a whole gospel book is a special form
(cf. below). There is indeed nowadays an undeniably increasing attention to how
to perform a gospel for modern audiences, because the awareness is growing
that – compared to silent reading and study – oral-aural (and visual!) com-
4 See my unpublished paper presented at the SBLIM‑EABS session on “Orality and the
Gospel of Mark” in Helsinki, August 2, 2018: “Orality, Memory, Performance: Doing Exegesis
with More Questions than Answers.”
5 The aim of this paper differs from attempts to find traces of orality in the gospel of
Mark. Of course, we can find some of these traces, see, e. g., C. Breytenbach, “Das Evangelium
nach Markus: Verschlüsselte Performanz?,” in Reading the Gospel of Mark in the Twenty-First
Century: Method and Meaning, ed. G. Van Oyen, BETL 301 (Leuven: Peeters, 2019), 87–114.
I am rather examining, at the synchronic level, what happens when oral communication takes
place. For the importance of media study, see H. E. Hearon and P. Ruge-Jones, eds., The Bible in
Ancient and Modern Media: Story and Performance, BPC (Eugene, OR: Wipf & Stock, 2009);
T. Thatcher, C. Keith, R. F. Person, Jr., and E. R. Stern, eds., The Dictionary of the Bible and
Ancient Media (London: Bloomsbury T&T Clark, 2017).
6 S. Finnern and J. Rüggemeier, Methoden der neutestamentlichen Exegese: Ein Lehr- und
Arbeitsbuch, UTB 4212 (Tübingen: Francke, 2016), 294–313 (the title of ch. 14).
7 Finnern and Rüggemeier, Methoden der neutestamentlichen Exegese, 299.
Actio according to Quintilian (Institutio oratoria 11.3) 337
munication offers different and additional value to the communicative aspects

of the gospel. It is not amazing that Finnern and Rüggemeier refer to Roman
rhetoric as a guideline for modern performance: “Außerdem ist der Körper des
Redners ein wichtiges Medium bei der Aufführung. Zwischen dem Inhalt bzw.
der Intention der Rede und der Stimme, Mimik, Gestik und Proxemik (räumliche
Distanz) muss eine Kohärenz bestehen.”8 These are more or less exactly the
categories Quintilian exposes in the chapter on actio in the Institutio oratoria. It
certainly is a step forward to find “Performanzkritik” in a German handbook of
methodology, but I suspect that performance critics will not be completely satis-
fied to see their method as part of a chapter with the subtitle: “Wofür kann ich
die Analysen verwenden?” They consider performance criticism as a complete
interdisciplinary research method.9
In sum, against this double background of orality and performance both in
antiquity and in the twenty-first century, the two questions here are: (1) Is there
any information in Quintilian’s work on actio that is useful when performing the
gospel or parts of the gospel of Mark? And, (2) in what way is the growing interest
in performances of a gospel helpful for exegetical methodology as a whole?
These questions belong to a larger debate about the hermeneutical question
of the compatibility between methods that are concerned with the past – the
historical critical methods (but in their wake also social approaches among
others) – on the one hand, and on the other hand newer methods that focus
on the present (some reader-oriented approaches, narrative criticism, or many
forms of “applied” exegesis). It seems to me that the exegetical “method” of stu-
dying orality and performance of the gospel can build a bridge between the past-
oriented methods and the present-oriented ones for more than one reason.10 The
most evident one is that because of the direct way of communication the experi-
ence of an oral performance of a story does not change very much, regardless of
the time the audience is living in.11
8 Finnern and Rüggemeier, Methoden der neutestamentlichen Exegese, 299.

9 D. M. Rhoads, “Biblical Performance Criticism: Performance as Research,” Oral Tradition
25 (2010): 157–98. – It is a little bit disappointing to see that ch. 17 (“Der Text in seiner Be-
ziehung zum alltäglichen Leben”) in the “6., völlig neubearbeitete Auflage” of W. Egger and
P. Wick, Methodenlehre zum Neuen Testament: Biblische Texte selbständig auslegen, asst.
D. Wagner, Grundlagen Theologie (Freiburg: Herder, 2011), is limited to one and a half pages
with the explanation: “Aufgrund der Ausrichtung dieser Neubearbeitung auf Proseminare
musste hier gekürzt werden” (276 n. 2).
10 C. Bryan, A Preface to Mark: Notes on the Gospel in Its Literary and Cultural Settings
(New York: Oxford University Press, 1993), 170: “We have therefore examined Mark’s text
using the tools of literary and historical criticism. If nothing else becomes clear from such an
examination, it is surely that Mark’s literary and social milieu is very remote from ours, and that
there is much about it we shall probably never understand. The abyss that separates Mark from
us can, however, be bridged by one means: performance.”
11 From a psychological point of view, compare a similar remark in P. Lampe, “Psycholo-
gische Einsichten Quintilians in der Institutio Oratoria,” NTS 52 (2006): 533–54, 533 n. 2: “Das
338 Geert Van Oyen
What will follow is not meant to devalue the classical exegetical approaches
of historical criticism or even narrative criticism, which are both working on
the written text of the Gospel of Mark, and which publish the result of their
research in written form. I simply want to call attention to the possibility and
the value of an oral performance of the gospel as a serious form of interpretation
of the text that reflects exegetical insights not by talking or writing about the
gospel but by telling and retelling the gospel itself. I do not do this for reasons of
romantic desire to copy what was done in ancient times. As I already mentioned,
I am not even sure the gospel as a whole was performed in antiquity. And if it
was, we do not necessarily have to imitate what one did in antiquity. I am doing
this because I firmly believe that oral communication of the gospel causes the
exegete-performer as well as the audience to be more open. Oral communication
of the gospel has contributed as much (if not more) to the transmission of the
gospel of Mark through the ages as did written communication – although the
opposition between written and oral transmission is (again) probably a false one.
B. Orality, Rhetoric, and Performance of Mark
There is no need here to repeat the development of orality studies on the gospel
of Mark since the foundational studies of Werner Kelber or Joanna Dewey.12
For our purpose, I want to highlight one aspect of the evolution within orality
studies. After initial interest in the oral style of the gospel(s) – sometimes wrongly
used as a criterion of authentic eyewitness in the search for the historical Jesus –
and in the processes of collective and social memory, the logical next step was to
do research on the actual performance of Mark’s gospel. Performance, indeed,
is the final stage of the orality process. It deals with the direct oral-aural com-
munication between performer and audience, and in the ars rhetorica it comes
after all the “preparatory” work has been done. Let me illustrate the difference
between a historical and a rhetorical-performance approach by quoting only
one author. In the introduction of his monograph on Mark in the series Inter-
preting Biblical Texts (1999), Donald Juel summarizes very well the impact of
this change from historical criticism towards orality and towards the rhetoric of
“performance.”13
folgende quintiliansche Material legt jedoch die Vermutung nahe, dass wenigstens innerhalb
des westlich-abendländischen Kulturraums einige Basisuniversalien existieren, die Kontinuität
auch über zwei Jahrtausende signalisieren.”
12 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); J. Dewey,
“Oral Methods of Structuring Narrative in Mark,” Int 43 (1989): 32–44. For a survey, see G. Van
Oyen, “No Performance Criticism without Narrative Criticism,” in Communication, Pedagogy,
and the Gospel of Mark, ed. E. E. Shively and idem, RBS 38 (Atlanta: SBL, 2016), 107–28.
13 D. H. Juel, The Gospel of Mark, Interpreting Biblical Texts (Nashville: Abingdon, 1999).
Traditional biblical scholarship has usually attended to such matters [author, readers, …]
by asking historical questions. … One might propose, on the contrary, that the task of
biblical scholars is to help a contemporary audience understand the Bible, and the task
of contemporary audience is to experience the force of the narrative’s argument in the
present.14
How should the narrator be embodied in a reader/performer? Should the reader be a
baritone or a tenor, a mezzo or a coloratura? There are no stage directions. Anyone can
read. How they embody the narrative, how they give it voice, will differ. Significant dif-
ferences may require some adjudication. Who is correct? The legitimacy of a performance
must take into account the effect of a particular reading as well as the ‘meaning.’ What
does hearing the passage do to readers? What should it do? Does it instill confidence in the
narrator among readers? Does it raise anxieties or challenge long-held convictions? While
such questions are more difficult than simple historical or literary queries, they will make
for a far more lively and interesting engagement with Mark’s Gospel.15
Orality studies have prepared the way for performance criticism. Just as narra-
tive criticism in the 1980s had to struggle to secure its place in NT criticism,
performance criticism is on its way to being integrated in the wider spectrum
of approaches.16 I might be wrong, but I see at least three explanations for the
relative success of the new approach in the academic world. Firstly, after a long
period of exaggerated focus on historical and “detached” exegesis, a return to
a more engaged reading and explanation of the Bible could be expected. One
rediscovers some values and dimensions of biblical research that were lost from
sight. Performing and experiencing a performance is like a fresh start. It feels
like going back to the roots. Moreover, performer and audience have a direct
sensation that the text of the gospel connects with real life. Secondly, one of
the challenges and opportunities of performing is that it reaches a large and
diversified audience. Anyone without any distinction can hear the gospel: the
evangelical Christian who carries a long tradition of interpretation, the agnostic
who based his insights about faith upon rationalist positivism, and the biblical
scholar who will be looking in a mirror. This opens the doors for dialogue
between the participants about the meaning of what they hear and see.17 Thirdly,
The content of the book itself is an application of this insight on several themes and sections of
the Gospel of Mark. Juel uses the word performance frequently in the book (23 times).
14 Juel, Gospel of Mark, 31–32.
15 Juel, Gospel of Mark, 34–35.
16 I intentionally add narrative criticism here because it has influenced performance
criticism in two ways, as a (1) synchronic method that (2) considers the gospel as a story. See
K. R. Iverson, ed., From Text to Performance: Narrative and Performance Criticisms in Dialogue
and Debate, BPC 10 (Eugene, OR: Wipf & Stock, 2014), with contributions by D. M. Rhoads,
J. Dewey, P. Ruge-Jones, H. E. Hearon, T. E. Boomershine, M. Lee, K. R. Iverson, K. Maxwell,
and R. Swanson. See also D. M. Rhoads, “Performance Criticism: An Emerging Methodology
in Second Testament Studies – Part I,” BTB 36/3 (2006): 118–33, and “Part II,” BTB 36/4 (2006):
164–84.
17 See E. S. Malbon, Hearing Mark: A Listener’s Guide (Harrisburg, PA: Trinity Press Inter-
national; London: Bloomsbury, 2002). The book about “hearing Mark” is written for those who
340 Geert Van Oyen
the success is not only due to theoretical studies but also to the performances
themselves. Some academics not only write about performance, but are per-
formers themselves. Markan scholars (in the English-speaking world) who de-
serve to be mentioned here are Thomas Boomershine,18 David Rhoads,19 Philip
Ruge-Jones,20 and the late Whitney Shiner.21 Their studies on oral performances
are combined with real performances and they make use of the internet to in-
form and communicate.22 Not only do they perform in real time, but they have
videos on YouTube as well.23 One should also know that there exist many less
“academic-scholarly” projects. This, however, does not contain a judgment on
the quality of the performance.24 There are also “schools” where people learn to
study the gospel of Mark by heart according to specific principles and methods.
They are often combined with an explicit spiritual perspective on the text,
like in the case of the Fraternité Saint-Marc25 or of the brothers Peter and Ian
Birkinshaw.26 It is difficult and probably impossible to measure, but it would be
interesting to have an estimation of the number of people who read the Bible on
their own in silence and of those who experience it through oral communication
(including liturgical celebrations!). It would confront us, mostly “scholars of the
written text,” with the limitations of the impact of our work.
The perspective on the performances I have in mind here is rhetorical, more
specifically that of Hellenistic and Roman rhetoric. References to these works to
interpret Mark’s gospel are not new. One may think for instance of Benoît Stand-
see themselves “in some relationship to the Christian tradition – although it may be somewhat
complex relationship involving questions as well as affirmations” (7).
18 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GheAa2AQ2nk.
19 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w5G8Mokhyf Y&list=PLMCNGsPs7YgbpsCe3tI42
oqOyOKsg-yzk (not a performance but two suggestions for opening up familiar texts).
20 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JhqMmDhc0UU.
21 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kBxwqKozFpk.
22 See for instance www.gotell.org (T. E. Boomershine), www.biblicalperformancecriticism.
org (D. M. Rhoads), www.nbsint.org (Network of Biblical Storytellers, founded by T. E. Boom-
ershine; with an annual Festival).
23 Although dating from June 2013, see some more names and links to videos on M. Good-
acre’s blog: http://ntweblog.blogspot.com/2013/06/performances-of-marks-gospel.html.
24 One always refers to the live performances by M. McLean. Among the many references
online, we mention https://www.thegospelcoalition.org/blogs/justin-taylor/marks-gospel-
performed-by-max-mclean-free-online/.
25 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uVCF7_WWwCY.
26 https://gospelofmarklive.wordpress.com. See also B. Marshall: https://reflections.yale.
edu/article/gospel-mark-out-loud. A quick search on Google on “Performances on the Gospel
of Mark” reveals the many different genres of how Mark has been performed in recent times.
Our intention is to focus on dramatic performance of the Gospel of Mark in monologues shared
within the academic world. Other valuable initiatives like Die Nacht der Bibel in Germany and
Austria combine reading (not performing) of biblical key texts connected with each other by
spoken and musical transitions. It was S. Alkier, the promotor of this event, who mentioned it
to me during the conference at Fort Worth. See Die Nacht der Bibel: Biblische Erzählsequenzen
in Wort und Klang (CD – Alkiers Wort und Klang LC58004).
aert’s PhD thesis (1978, directed by Bas van Iersel) on the composition of Mark,27
or of Vernon K. Robbins’s Jesus the Teacher (1984) on the use of repetitive pro-
gressive forms,28 but there are many more. A recent survey on Mark and ancient
rhetoric (2017) gives a clear overview of the topics that were studied through the
lenses of ancient rhetoric.29 Typically, since research has mainly focused upon
the written text of Mark, only the first parts of the rhetorical canon were taken
into consideration, especially the structure or arrangement (dispositio) and the
style (elocutio) of the gospel. Not only biblical scholars,30 but also literary critics
in general have noticed the lack of interest in what Quintilian and other orators
said about “delivery” (actio).31 In 2001, Chris Holcomb concludes an article on
Quintilian with the following remark: “Strange that historians of rhetoric have
not paid more attention to issues of performance. For it is performance, after all,
that is the ultimate goal and destination of oratorical training.”32
I am aware that it remains a little bit awkward to talk in our scholarly guild
about oral performance. A lot of resistance against the phenomenon has to do
with the fact that this kind of research is about the practical performative aspect
of the text, which – according to many critics – does not really belong to real
“science.”33 It is true that performance is situated on the border of exegesis and
other fields of theology and other disciplines as well. Since it involves a visible
and bodily effort of the whole person – more than any other critical approach –
it can easily be considered (and rejected) as a (too-)personal subjective inter-
pretation of the gospel.34 Performing demands a willingness and openness to
27 B. Standaert, L’évangile selon Marc: Composition et genre littéraire (Nijmegen: Stichting

Studentenpers, 1978).
28 V. K. Robbins, Jesus the Teacher: A Socio-Rhetorical Interpretation of Mark (Philadelphia:
Fortress, 1984).
29 D. M. Young and M. Strickland, The Rhetoric of Jesus in the Gospel of Mark (Minneapolis:
Fortress, 2017), 49–55 (“Rhetoric and the Gospel of Mark”). Not all of the authors mentioned
there (and elsewhere in the book’s footnotes) refer to the ancient orators, but they all pay
attention to rhetorical elements in the gospel.
30 A. Gignac, “‘On en fit la lecture’ (Ac 15,30–32): L’interprétation des lettres du Nouveau
Testament en contexte d’oralité,” in Narrativité, oralité et performance: 7e Colloque internation-
al du Réseau de Recherche en Narratologie et Bible (RRENAB), 5 au 7 juin 2014, Université de
Montréal, ed. idem, Terra Nova 4 (Leuven: Peeters, 2018), 71–106. See also M. B. Dinkler, “New
Testament Rhetorical Narratology: An Invitation toward Integration,” BibInt 24 (2016): 203–28.
31 The same could be said about another aspect of rhetoric, i. e., memoria.
32 C. Holcomb, “‘The Crown of All Our Study’: Improvisation in Quintilian’s Institutio
Oratoria,” in Rhetoric Society Quarterly 31/3 (2001): 53–72, here 70. Cf. L. Tonger-Erk, Actio:
Körper und Geschlecht in der Rhetoriklehre, Studien zur deutschen Literatur 196 (Berlin: De
Gruyter, 2012), 45: “Obwohl die Rhetoriken der actio so einstimmig einen hohen Stellenwert
beimessen, bleibt das Ausmaß der Beschäftigung mit der actio doch merkwürdig gering.”
33 Symptomatic is the fact that Bryan – in his underestimated monograph A Preface to Mark
(1993) – adds as the very last part of the book four pages on Gospel and Performance (167–70)
under the heading: “Unscientific Postscripts.”
34 On the relation of narratology and re-telling (Nacherzählung) of stories, with special
attention to the fact that retelling a story always implies a certain critical position, see S. Fin-
342 Geert Van Oyen
become vulnerable from the side of the performer. Both performer and audience
have to leave their comfort zone.
C. What Does Quintilian Say about Actio?
The actio (ὑπόκρισις, also pronuntiatio) or delivery is the fifth part of the classical
canons of rhetoric: inventio (invention), dispositio (arrangement, composition),
elocutio (style), memoria (memory), actio (delivery). The description of actio as
part of ancient rhetoric receives systematic attention in the works of the Roman
writers:35 Rhetorica ad Herennium, the three works of Cicero (De oratore, Orator,
Brutus), and Quintilian’s Institutio oratoria.36 All modern scholars agree upon
the fact that Quintilian is the most complete writer on rhetoric because “his work
deals with the entire spectrum of rhetoric’s technical aspects in a thorough and
systematic way.”37 This is also true for his exposé on delivery.38
Quintilian’s Institutio oratoria (published ca. 95 CE, in 12 books) is a manual
of practice and theory for teachers and students of rhetoric. The commentary
on actio is found in book 11, section 3. It consists of 184 paragraphs.39 The two
aspects that play a role in performance are the voice (vox) and the gestures
(gestus, including the face), “which is both posture (the static way of presenting
oneself ) and gesticulation (the dynamic way).”40 They correspond to the ears
nern, Narratologie und biblische Exegese: Eine integrative Methode der Erzählanalyse und ihr
Ertrag am Beispeil von Matthäus 28, WUNT 2/285 (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2010), 258–61;
T. E. Boomershine, “All Scholarship Is Personal: David Rhoads and Performance Criticism,”
CurTM 37/4 (2010): 279–87.
35 On actio in antiquity, see Tonger-Erk, Actio, 40–49 (and the bibliography at 41 n. 3).
See also E. Fantham, “Quintilian on Performance: Traditional and Personal Elements in In-
stitutio 11.3,” Phoenix 36 (1982): 243–63; U. Maier-Eichhorn, Die Gestikulation in Quintilians
Rhetorik, Europäische Hochschulschriften 15/41 (Frankfurt am Main: Peter Lang, 1989);
G. Wöhrle, “Actio: Das fünfte officium des antiken Redners,” Gymnasium 97 (1990): 31–46;
F. Graf, “Gestures and Conventions: The Gestures of Roman Actors and Orators,” in A Cultural
History of Gesture, ed. J. Bremmer and H. Roodenburg (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press,
1992), 36–58; J. Hall, “Cicero and Quintilian on the Oratorical Use of Hand Gestures,” ClQ 54
(2004): 143–60; J. Fernández López, “Quintilian as Rhetorician and Teacher,” in Dominik and
Hall, Companion to Roman Rhetoric, 307–22; J. Hall, “Oratorical Delivery and the Emotions:
Theory and Practice,” in ibid., 218–34.
36 See the appendix, “A Brief History of Greco-Roman Rhetoric,” in Young and Strickland,
Rhetoric of Jesus, 299–317.
37 Fernández López, “Quintilian as Rhetorician and Teacher,” 307.
38 Cicero for instance speaks about delivery only in De or. 3.213–227 and Or. Brut. 55–60.
39 The general outline of 11.3 is as follows: introduction (1–14a), voice (14b–65a), the ges-
tures and formal things (64b–149a), the difference of speech adapted to each part of it (149b–
176), epilogue (177–184). For the English translation online, see http://penelope.uchicago.edu/
Thayer/E /Roman/Texts/Quintilian/Institutio_Oratoria/11C*.html#3. For the Latin text, see
http://www.thelatinlibrary.com/quintilian/quintilian.institutio11.shtml#3.
40 Graf, “Gestures and Conventions,” 37.
(voice) and the eyes (gesture) of the audience receiving the performance.41 It
is impossible to give an exhaustive survey of the entire content of Inst. 11.3.42
My reading of Quintilian’s chapter is functional and is mainly done in light of
what will follow about performances of Mark. I make a distinction between two
categories. One category concerns the practical suggestions and concrete advices
Quintilian gives to his readers-teachers-students. The other one concerns the
general characteristics of a good delivery.43 Before that, let us just take one mo-
ment to listen to a fragment of the introduction which contains, with reference
to Cicero, a very strong plea for a good delivery of the speech:
[T]he thing itself [delivery] has an extraordinarily powerful effect in oratory. For the
nature of the speech that we have composed within our minds is not so important as the
manner in which we produce it, since the emotion of each member of our audience will
depend on the impression made upon his hearing. Consequently, no proof, at least if it
be one devised by the orator himself, will ever be so secure as not to lose its force if the
speaker fails to produce it in tones that drive it home. All emotional appeals will inevitably
fall flat, unless they are given the fire that voice, look, and the whole carriage of the body
can give them. (Inst. 11.3.2)
From this quotation, we can learn already two relevant things: (1) a written text
is not complete if it is not delivered in an oral form44 that successfully touches
the emotions of the audience; and (2) an oral performance should be of excellent
quality.
1. Some Practical Suggestions

A long list of tips and tricks, of dos and don’ts to acquire and to train a good
voice (11. 3. 14 qualitas) precedes instructions on how to use it to conform the
41 Tonger-Erk, Actio, 45: “Die Art des Vortrags ist für die Überzeugung und Gewinning des
Publikums das letztlich entscheidende Instrument.” On that point all Roman authors agree.
42 See Maier-Eichhorn, Die Gestikulation in Quintilians Rhetorik.
43 This should be seen in the broader framework of Quintilian’s Institutio which is also
a book on how to be or to become a good man, vir bonus dicendi peritus (Inst. 12.1.1, quot-
ing Marcus Cato). See B. Steinbrink, “Actio,” in Historisches Wörterbuch der Rhetorik, ed.
G. Ueding, et al., 12 vols. (Tübingen: Niemeyer, 1992–2015), 1:43–52, here 50–51; Lampe,
“Psychologische Einsichten”; and many other authors.
44 Later on, in 12.10, Quintilian explains that both oral and written communication are
necessary and have their value: “[49] For a number of learned authorities have held that the
written and the spoken speech stand on different footings, and that consequently some of the
most eloquent of speakers have left nothing for posterity to read in durable literary form, as, for
example, is the case with Pericles and Demades. … [51] My own view is that there is absolutely
no difference between writing well and speaking well, and that a written speech is merely a
record of one that has actually been delivered. Consequently it must in my opinion possess
every kind of merit, and note that I say merit, not fault. … [52] What, then, will be the difference
between what is written and what is spoken? … [54] Did Demosthenes and Cicero speak better,
then, or worse than they wrote? If they spoke worse, all that can be said is that they should have
spoken as they wrote, while, if they spoke better, they should have written as they spoke.”
344 Geert Van Oyen
language of the speech itself to what is correct, clear, ornate, and appropriate
(30, emendata dilucida ornata apta). Quintilian mentions the use of pauses
(34–39), the compatibility of evenness and variety (aequalitas, varietas, 43–44),
“the necessity of adapting the voice to suit the nature of the various subjects on
which we are speaking and the moods that they demand” (45–51), the breath
(51–56, “Our speech must be ready, but not precipitate, under control, but not
slow”), the avoidance of singing (57–60), and the importance of a correct use
of the voice adapted to the emotions (62–65). This last aspect is explained in
detail at the end of the chapter on actio (149–176). There, Quintilian mentions
four general aspects with regard to emotions, starting from the whole of the
text to the smaller units. (1) One should find the right tone for the whole of the
text. (2) Different parts of the discourse demand different emotions. (3) Every
sentence is different and the delivery should be in correspondence with every
single emotion in the sentence. (4) In fact, even at the level of a single word one
should know which interpretation one wants to deliver. He concludes: “To cut a
long matter short, if my reader will take this or any other word he chooses and
run it through the whole gamut of emotional expression, he will realise the truth
of what I say” (176).45
Between the two sections on the voice, Quintilian inserts the advices about
gestures (66–148). The head, as chief member of the body, plays the most
important role. The glance expresses feelings like supplication, threats, flattery,
sorrow, joy, pride or submission (72). When the eyes move, they become intent,
indifferent, proud, fierce, mild, or angry (75). Every detail of the head (except
maybe the nose) has a function in the expression of emotions: the eyebrows,
the cheeks, the eyelids, and the neck (77–84). The longest part on gesture is
dedicated to the hands. The reason is simple: “As for the hands, without which
all action would be crippled and enfeebled, it is scarcely possible to describe the
variety of their motions, since they are almost as expressive as words” (85). The
emotions expressed by the hands – “the universal language” (87) – are count-
less.46 Further instructions are given about other parts of the body: the general
45 Et ne morer, intra se quisque vel hoc vel aliud quod volet per omnis adfectus verset: verum
esse quod dicimus sciet.
46 I found the following ones in Inst. 11. 3. 85–116 (not all of them are emotions): to
demand, promise, summon, dismiss, threaten, supplicate, express aversion or fear, question or
deny (86); to express joy, sorrow, hesitation, confession, penitence, measure, quantity, number,
and time (87). Quintilian gives very specific description of the positions of the hand when it
comes to express “statements of facts,” reproach, refuting (92), denunciation, indication (94),
argumentation (95), modesty (96), markers of different points (99), restraint or timidity (100),
interrogation, approval, distinction of different points (101), promise, assent, exhortation, praise
(102), surprise, fear, indignation (103), regret, anger (104). Hall (“Oratorical Delivery,” 226)
notes “some twenty different gestures involving the hands.” For twenty-four sketches and illus-
trations about the positions of the hand, see Maier-Eichhorn, Die Gestikulation in Quintilians
Rhetorik, 137–43. Gignac (“On en fit la lecture,” 78 n. 31) also mentions G. S. Aldrete, Gestures
and Acclamations in Ancient Rome (Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1999),
position, the feet, the shoulders (122–136). The last paragraphs on gesture are
about grooming: toga, shoes, rings, tunic (137–149).
The whole section 11.3 can sound a little bit strange to modern ears, and
[t]here has been some debate about how artificial the rhetorical system of gestures outlined
by Quintilian actually was and to what extent it was based on the gestures commonly used
in daily life. Some scholars, perhaps misled by the minute detail of Quintilian’s account
and prescriptions, have claimed that such a system was quite separate from everyday ges-
tural communication and that it could only be learned and mastered through arduous
training in rhetorical schools. This view has been rightly contested (for full discussion see
Hall 2004, where wide bibliographical reference is provided), and Quintilian’s precepts
are best regarded as a conscious selection and stylization of everyday Roman nonverbal
communication. Such a selection must be based, once again, on the orator’s sense of dig-
nity, which implies the rejection of improper bodily movements and gestures, especially
those that are conceived of as “effeminate” (11. 3. 32, 11. 3. 91).47
2. Some General Ideas

Apart from a detailed description of how to speak and move, we can distill
some general ideas, which might be relevant for a performance of the Gospel
of Mark. First, Quintilian is a proponent of a rather simple style of delivery. He
is against exaggerated movement and against mimicry (11. 3. 88–91, 103, 107,
182). A courtyard or public speech is not a theatre; an orator is not a comic actor
(181). It is also necessary to keep in mind the circumstances of the delivery (150,
quis, apud quos, quibus praesentibus sit acturus).48 Second, the general purpose
and a video (www.uwgb.edu/aldreteg/Greg.Ostia.mov). Concerning the gesticulation there
is a debate about the illuminations in the early medieval manuscripts of the work of Terence
(Publius Terentius Afer); see W. T. Shiner, Proclaiming the Gospel: First-Century Performance
of Mark (Harrisburg, PA: Trinity Press International, 2003), 129–35; Maier-Eichhorn, Die Ges-
tikulation in Quintilians Rhetorik, 150–53.
47 Fernández López, “Quintilian as Rhetorician and Teacher,” 319. It would take us too
far to develop the gender issue linked to the performer; according to Tonger-Erk (Actio, 46),
“corporeality” (“Körperlichkeit”) is one of the paradoxes of rhetoric in antiquity that explains
why there was no “Verwissenschaftlichung” of the actio in later periods: “Zunächst bedarf die
Wissenschaft von der actio einer naturgegebenen körperlichen Grundlage – eines männlichen,
gut gewachsenen, nicht verkrüppelten Körpers. Doch selbst der ausgebildete, trainierte und
beherrschte Körper scheint nie ganz in den oratorischen Verkörperungen aufzugehen. Immer
wieder verrutscht das Bild, offenbart sich der Körper in seiner geschlechtlichen Materialität,
was die rhetorische Lehre gerade zu vermeiden angetreten ist. Zuletzt scheint die Verschieden-
artigkeit, die Individualität der Körper dem Systematisierungswillen der Rhetorik einen Regel
vorzuschieben, so dass das decorum, die Regeln des Passenden und Schicklichen, gerade in
Bezug auf die actio am Ende für jeden etwas anderes bedeuten kann – eine Feststellung, die
Quintilans vorherige ausführliche wissenschaftliche Ausarbeitung der actio geradezu paradox
erscheinen lässt” (with reference to Inst. 11.3.178).
48 Graf, “Gestures and Conventions,” 39–40: “But most insistent is the opposition between
rhetorical and theatrical gesticulation” (39). The main reason is that the “outward appearance
of a person is an image of the inward personality and character – dress, gestures, walking, any
motion, are significant of interior man” (40).
346 Geert Van Oyen
of actio is triple: conciliatory, persuasive, and moving (tria autem praestare debet
pronuntiatio, ut conciliet persuadeat moveat), and the “possession of these three
qualities involves charm (ut etiam delectet) as a further requisite” (154). It is
therefore important “never to be so preoccupied over particular portions of a
case as to forget to consider the case as a whole” (151). Third, when reading
the Institutio, one is struck by the focus on emotions. Voice and gestures have
to work together harmoniously in order to “exhibit an emotion that cannot be
distinguished from the truth” (62, see 61–65). “If the orator is then able to convey
these images effectively to the audience, he will succeed in rousing the same
powerful emotions in them too.”49 Fourth, there is a kind of paradox in the de-
scription of delivery: on the one hand it is a very technical question, on the
other it is also a matter of talent and “despite the fact that such success cannot be
attained without art, it is impossible entirely to communicate the secret by the
rules of art” (177). But that seems true for all forms of arts.50
D. What about Actio of Mark Today?
1. Relevance of Quintilian’s Actio for Markan Performance

Without entering the debate about the plausibility of performances of Mark in the
first century and the circumstances in which these could have taken place,51 there
are many reasons why we should not refer to Quintilian when performing the
Gospel of Mark today. He wrote his Institutio for orators and not for storytellers;
there are many gestures that are determined by time and region (Mediterranean
context) and are therefore foreign to other cultures.52 On the other hand, one
49 Hall, “Oratorical Delivery,” 234. See also the beginning of Institutio 11 where Quintilian
says that voice and gesture appeal to the ear and the eye “the two senses by which all emotion
reaches the soul” (11. 3. 14). Graf, “Gestures and Conventions,” 40: “To understand the system
of Roman rhetorical gestus and its peculiarities, it is important to have a clear idea of its aim.
Quintilian is outspoken about what it is all about; the gestural language together with the rest of
the performance is directed towards the emotions, not the reason, of the audience.”
50 Hall, “Oratorical Delivery,” 234: “For the Romans, oratory was closer to what we would
call today a performing art than a literary genre.”
51 See, e. g., A. C. Wire, The Case for Mark Composed in Performance, BPC 3 (Eugene, OR:
Wipf & Stock, 2011). On the different ways of performing with or without a manuscript, see
K. M. Hartvigsen, Prepare the Way of the Lord: Towards a Cognitive Poetic Analysis of Audience
Involvement with Characters and Events in the Markan World, BZNW 180 (Berlin: De Gruyter,
2012), 5 n. 15: “In antiquity, the character of performances would vary according to the social
settings in which they took place. Some would be formal, others informal, some would be based
on manuscripts, others not”; p. 8: “Whether a written manuscript was present or the gospel
was performed from memory, may therefore not be of particular importance for my analysis
of an oral performance of Mark.” See also D. Nässelqvist, Public Reading in Early Christianity:
Lectors, Manuscripts, and Sound in the Oral Delivery of John 1–4, NovTSup 163 (Leiden: Brill,
2016), 17–62 (Pragmatics of Reading).
52 Graf, “Gestures and Conventions,” 51–52.
cannot deny that some basic principles of oral communication transcend the
literary genre and are common to the delivery of both rhetorical discourses and
stories like a gospel.53 One can think of the art of convincing an audience, the
attention to the role of emotions, the idea of performing as the ultimate method
of communication, the search for a convenient delivery adapted to the kind of
text that is performed.
In light of our interpretation of Quintilian’s Institutio and more specifically of
actio, we can retain at least three essential things for Markan exegesis in general.
First, it is a wake-up call for all exegetes of the gospel, that they should become
aware that writing about the text is only half of the job as long as it is not touch-
ing the “emotions” of the readers. Delivery is the most efficient way to touch the
recipients of the story. And for scholars the best way to move their audience is
to be moved themselves.54 In other words, what is the relationship of the exegete
with the text s/he is studying? Second, it is by speaking the text out loud in front
of an audience and in interaction with the audience that we can experience new
dimensions of the text. This implies also a preliminary challenge to performers.
They should first make a choice about the general goal they want to reach in per-
forming the whole of the gospel. Only thereafter can they see how they should
consider every lower level of the text, as Quintilian mentioned: first the whole
text, then the larger parts, thereafter the sentence, and finally every word. Third,
actio is a well-considered aspect of performance. We cannot copy-paste what
Quintilian is writing, but we can learn from it that a professional approach of
delivery is necessary in order to obtain a good balance between text, voice, and
gesture. Delivery deserves research.
If we take seriously the contribution of delivery to biblical exegesis, some
characteristics of performance could and should be integrated into broader
exegetical perspective. Performance criticism should not be something that is
placed in a footnote as a minor issue. One of these characteristics is that each
performance is always unique.55 There are no two identical performances, not
53 See also above n. 11 (Lampe).

54 Inst. 6.2.28, 36; see M. Leigh, “Quintilian on the Emotions (Institutio Oratoria 6 Preface
and 1–2),” JRS 94 (2004): 122–40. Apart from the actio there are many other aspects of the
rhetoric that contribute to moving the audience.
55 Bryan, Preface to Mark, 169–70. Breytenbach, “Das Evangelium nach Markus,” 90–91:
“eine performance [ist] einmalig. Sie ist in einen bestimmten sozialen Kontext eingebettet. Ein/e
bestimmte/r Akteur/in interagiert mit der Zuhörerschaft, die zu dem Zeitpunkt gegenwärtig ist,
zuhört und zuschaut, mitfühlt und -riecht. Auch wenn sie sich die Teilnehmer/innen zu einem
späteren Zeitpunkt am selben Ort ein weiteres Mal treffen würden, wäre es eine neue per-
formance mit einer eigenen Dynamik. Wiederholte Aufnahmen, die Kulturanthropologen von
denselben Performern gemacht haben, die die gleichen Texte vor demselben Klan aufführen,
zeigen, dass das Gesprochene und die begleitenden Handlungen, auch die der Zuhörer und
Zuhörerinnen, sich nur mit erheblichen Variationen wiederholen. Auf der Seite des Performers
gibt es nicht nur Variationen in Lautstärke, Ton, Betonung, Gestik und Mimik, sondern auch in
Wortwahl und Wendungen.”
348 Geert Van Oyen
even by the same person. The circumstances are never identical, the audience
changes, etc. And a second one is that the text itself may change with each per-
formance. Some things will be added, others will be omitted or changed, and,
maybe more fundamentally, special translations are used.56 Both characteristics
belong to the oral process of performing, and they are sometimes used to dis-
qualify the status of performance for exegesis. In fact, the revival of performances
takes us back to the mixed culture of oral and written text, as it was in the first
century. It relativizes the importance attached to a fixed text. Every written com-
mentary on the gospel of Mark is nothing other than a snapshot based on one
written copy of the non-existing but supposed “original.”57 Both aspects of per-
formance – the uniqueness of the text and the changeability of the text – cannot
be used as an argument against the integration of performance criticism in the
canon of methodologies of gospel criticism. The main difference is that written
texts and written commentaries can have an influence for centuries (although
they undergo changes!) while oral performances are instantaneous. However,
the advantage of an oral performance is that it contains text and interpretation in
one movement, while a written source text is “void” of meaning as long as there
is no additional interpretation.58 This observation on the specificity of written
text and oral performance is not a judgment on the quality of the medium but
on the effect of it. Both have their own value and are not contradictory but com-
plementary. In an earlier article, I considered exegesis in modern times where
multiple approaches are accepted, as a dialogue between readers.59 I now should
correct myself and add: it is a dialogue between writers, readers, performers
and audience. We are evolving towards a continuous exchange between oral
and written information and interpretation – not to mention the visual! – and
between writers and performers. Writing about the written gospels is always
56 These “changes” can be compared to what happens in the written transmission of the
text.
57 On the relationship between written text(s) and oral performance, see (among many
other authors) Hartvigsen, Prepare the Way of the Lord, 5–9, 8: “The manner in which written
texts were composed and read also draws attention to the interface of oral and written media.
Interaction between graphic and acoustical signs during the encoding and decoding process
tended to reduce considerably the discrepancy between the two media. … Hence, one might
claim that late Western Antiquity was ‘a culture of high residual orality which nevertheless com-
municated significantly by means of literary creations’” (the citation is from P. J. Achtemeier,
“Omne verbum sonat: The New Testament and the Oral Environment of Late Western Antiqui-
ty,” JBL 109 [1990]: 3–27, 3).
58 See on this difference K. R. Iverson, “A Centurion’s ‘Confession’: A Performance-Critical
Analysis of Mark 15:39,” JBL 130 (2011): 329–50, 332: “Thus, while writing has distinct advan-
tages, permanence being one of them, a written transcription obscures the full dynamics of a
communicative event.”
59 G. Van Oyen, “‘À bon lecteur salut!’ La lecture du Nouveau Testament comme dialogue
entre lecteurs/rices,” in Le lecteur: Sixième colloque international du RRENAB, Université
Catholique de Louvain, 24–26 mai 2012, ed. R. Burnet, D. Luciani, and G. Van Oyen, BETL 273
(Leuven: Peeters, 2015), 19–42.
opening new dimensions of a text according to the methods that are used,60 and
so is every single new performance. Although the media and their effects are dif-
ferent, orality and literacy may have more in common than we think. A growing
collaboration and interaction between written exegesis and other media exists
already. Just think of the success of new research fields such as Bible and film,
Bible and art, Bible and literature. If a painting by Rembrandt or a novel by
José Saramago can be considered as a valuable exegesis of a text,61 a fortiori a
performance of a gospel “text” is exegesis. It is the general insight of Quintilian
on the role of delivery that indirectly can make a change in the way we describe
the function and the method of doing exegesis. I learned from my teaching
experience at undergraduate level in which I combine oral performance and
written research that a symbiosis between orality and literacy made it possible
for students to reach a much closer contact with the text than when I taught the
same class ex cathedra and on the basis of a purely textual approach.62
2. The Practice of Performing Mark

When it comes to the concrete design of a performance of Mark, one quickly dis-
covers the limitation of a manual like the Institutio. Quintilian describes delivery
in a detailed manner, sometimes with a description of gestures we do not under-
stand anymore today. However, a handbook on oral delivery is like a book of
methodology on written texts. They contain descriptions of how one could or
should act, but the concrete elaboration depends on the performer himself/her-
self, just as an individual exegete will use source criticism or other methods in
her or his own way. He or she constantly has to make decisions. What is the main
idea I want to transmit? Where are the emotions, and which emotion exactly is
there in every single word or verse? Who is exactly my audience tonight? Do
I opt for a low style (used for teaching), a middle style (to please), or a high style
(to move)?63 The delivery Quintilian is talking about is always in interaction
with a written text of a speech. This is also true for the performances of Mark we
are talking about here. The performer delivers a concrete exegesis of a text. He is
60 There are always new “waves” in biblical research. See now for instance the perspective
of trauma theory. E. g., S. Guijarro, “Cultural Trauma, Collective Memory, and Social Iden-
tity: The Gospel of Mark as Progressive Narrative,” in Van Oyen, Reading the Gospel of Mark,
141–69.
61 R. Burnet, “Quand l’artiste est l’exégète,” in Le récit: Thèmes bibliques et variations –
Lectures et réécritures littéraires et artistiques, VIIIe colloque international du RRENAB, Metz,
26–29 mai 2016, ed. E. di Pede, O. Flichy, and D. Luciani, BETL 293 (Leuven: Peeters, 2018),
41–71, 71: “Il faut autant regarder Rembrandt que lire Bultmann, autant passer son temps au
Louvre qu’à compulser le dictionnaire de Kittel.”
62 Van Oyen, “No Performance Criticism,” esp. 120–28; T. E. Boomershine, “Teaching
Mark as Performance Literature: Early Literate and Postliterate Pedagogies,” in Shively and Van
Oyen, Communication, Pedagogy, and the Gospel of Mark, 73–94.
63 http://rhetoric.byu.edu/Canons/Style/Style-Levels.htm.
350 Geert Van Oyen
an exegete, just like a commentator of the gospel of Mark. The difference is that
(in principle, but this might be questioned) the performer can only present one
interpretation at a time to the audience, while the commentator can offer many
interpretations to the readers.
During an oral performance, the performer may even out ambiguities and constrain
interpretations that are left open-ended in the specific written manuscript on which a per-
formance is based. By choosing to utter a phrase in a certain manner or to make gestures
which emphasize a specific interpretation, the performer reveals his understanding of the
narrative. Accordingly, a particular performance of a narrative reflects the cognitive efforts
of the performer before or during the performance event. These features of the perform-
ance event are impossible to reconstruct. The theories that are presented will therefore
call attention to characteristics of the written manuscript which may be realized in various
manners by different performers during performance events.64
So even with the rules well-described, freedom, responsibility, personality, and

talent of the performer are determinative for the delivery during the perform-
ance. Each performer will act according his/her temperament and according
to the circumstances in which the performance takes place. A great effort has
been made by several scholars to describe their own performances or how one
could/should perform (passages from) Mark. In so doing, they make the inverse
movement from oral performance to written explanation about the performance.
It is worth the effort to compare some of these comments. On the one hand, this
comparison reveals different aspects of delivery and, on the other hand, it helps
to see how delivery is a form of exegesis that connects with the tradition of written
exegesis.65 Therefore, in the last part of this contribution, I would like to compare
some comments by three authors on the text and the performance of Jesus’s death
in Mark 15:34–37. Whitney Shiner and Thomas Boomershine are also perform-
ers, and Kirsten Hartvigsen published a monograph on the psychological aspects
of audience involvement with characters and events.
3. Three Authors on Mark 15:34–37

Whitney Shiner is certainly the author who has the most detailed description
that is closest to the theories of delivery in the first century. He concludes his
comments on “Delivery and Emotion” in ancient rhetorical literature as follows:
“A speaker was not believable if he was not emotional. For the Gospels to be
credible, then, the performer would have to present them in an emotional
manner. Otherwise, they could be dismissed as quaint stories.”66 Shiner focuses
64 Hartvigsen, Prepare the Way of the Lord, 6–7.

65 It is not my intention here to make a (critical) review of the performances of colleagues.
I only want to present some different possibilities to perform Mark and how these creations
were justified by the performers themselves.
66 Shiner, Proclaiming the Gospel, 81–83, 83.
on emotions in the delivery. He distances himself from Quintilian’s critique on

the popular style because it would be too close to what actors do on stage.67
This becomes clear in the comments on his own performance that, necessarily,
contain a very personal exegesis because they are a kind of self-reflection. Shiner
incorporates Quintilian’s idea that the performer himself has to feel the emotions
he wants to stimulate within the audience. One of the scenes where “audience
inclusion” functions very well is the crucifixion scene. As a performer, one can
express the emotions best when it is done in character. That is how Shiner de-
scribes the performance:
The cry of dereliction, I enjoy. I have one line to express the suffering of Jesus. I muster up
every ounce of pain I have felt in my life and cry in a loud voice, “Eloi! Eloi! Lema sabach-
thani?” Then I get to repeat in English: “My God! My God! Why have you forsaken
me?” (15:34) It is very cathartic for me, though it may be disconcerting for the audience.
The mockery is transformed by doing it in character. My understanding of mockery in
character is extremely nasty. I overdo it a little and make the mocking sound like third-
graders on the playground, with lots of “Naaah naah na naaah naah!” in my tone of voice.
“Hey Messiah! King of Israel! Come on down from the cross so that we might see and
believe!” The childish tone is appropriate since we are supposed to despise those who
mock Jesus in his pain.
When I read the mockery silently, I usually think of the cleverness of Mark’s irony.
When I perform it, I think about how nasty the mockery is. Much of the crucifixion scene
consists of mockery. About halfway through, it begins to feel a little strange to perform.
This is the foundational narrative of Christianity. It is the climactic scene around which
the whole narrative is built. I am standing there, insulting Jesus. The audience is sitting
there, listening to me abuse Jesus. What a strange way to celebrate the Son of God! If
I wanted to hear someone ridicule Jesus, I could go out on the street and find a Pharisee
or some Roman soldiers.
It is this mockery that involves the audience so deeply in the crucifixion. Mark has
focused on the one part of the suffering of Jesus that I can experience. If the performer
describes the physical agony of crucifixion, it remains something external to me. I sym-
pathize with pain of that sort. If the performance describes the mental anguish of Jesus,
it is still external to me. My reaction is still sympathy. If the performer yells insults at
Jesus, I experience that directly. That “dinglewort” is insulting Jesus. That “dinglewort” is
insulting me! Mark puts me in the place of Jesus in the one way I can feel directly.68
More than any silent reading of a written text, participation at such a perform-
ance of the crucifixion scene makes understandable to the audience what is at
stake here. The idea behind Shiner’s interpretation is that through his authentic
performance in which he expresses the emotions of Jesus’s pain of the abandon-
ment and of the cruelty of the mockery, he will be able to move the audience.
67 Shiner, Proclaiming the Gospel, 81–88, 87: “It is doubtful that the rhetorical taste of
Mark and his audience was as refined as that of Quintilian, let alone as conservative. We are
much more likely to find indications of their taste in Quintilian’s assumptions against common
failings that he tells his students to avoid.”
68 Shiner, Proclaiming the Gospel, 182–83 (bold as in the original).
352 Geert Van Oyen
The performance of Mark in the “grand style” of antiquity should make it pos-
sible to modern participants to be touched by the story. Why the option for such
an “emotional performance”? The answer is very clear and unambiguous. Per-
forming according to Shiner is a testimony of faith and “the performance of the
Gospel makes Jesus powerfully present.”69
Although Thomas Boomershine has a completely different way of per-
forming, he shares the same initial idea that “in the moment of performance,
the meaning is more directly connected with the emotional impact of the events
and characters involved” than with ideas or facts.70 His book on the passion
and resurrection story in Mark 14–15 is a critical exegetical commentary and
interpretation on the Greek text, and it focuses specifically on the sound of both
the Greek text and the English translation in oral performance. Boomershine’s
vision on the message of the gospel is explained in the introduction: “the story of
Jesus as the nonviolent Messiah of peace and reconciliation with Israel’s Gentile
enemies in the period after the Judean-Roman War.”71 Not as much the gestures
but the speed, the emphasis, the voice, the tone, the repetitions, the difference
between circumstances and essential sentences are helping the performer in
putting the emphasis in specific manner.
In contrast to Shiner, Boomershine’s performances are closer to the simple
style of delivery. The tool that is used to guide the performance is sound map-
ping.72 With regard to Mark 15:33–37,73 this leads to the following printed pre-
sentation:74
1.1 (Καὶ γενομένης ὥρας ἕκτης σκότος ἐγένετο* ἐφ᾽ ὅλην τὴν γῆν ἕως ὥρας ἐνάτης.)
2.1 (καὶ τῇ* ἐνάτῃ* ὥρᾳ*) ἐβόησεν ὁ* Ἰησοῦς φωνῇ μεγάλῃ,
2.2 Ελωι ελωι λεμα σαβαχθανι;
2.3 ὅ ἐστιν μεθερμηνευόμενον Ὁ θεός μου ὁ θεός μου, εἰς τί ἐγκατέλιπές με;
69 Shiner, Proclaiming the Gospel, 192. See the whole conclusion at 191–93.
70 T. E. Boomershine, The Messiah of Peace: A Performance-Criticism Commentary on
Mark’s Passion-Resurrection Narrative, BPC 12 (Eugene, OR: Wipf & Stock, 2015), 11. The
quotation is found in a section on the difference between “oral-culture” and “literate-culture”
audiences (9–13). His commentary on Mark 14–15 maintains “a dialectal relationship between
engagement in the experience of the story and critical analysis,” starting with “first engagement
with performance and then involvement in critical analysis” (13).
71 Boomershine, Messiah of Peace, 1. “Mark’s gospel announced that the kingdom of God
and the deliverance of the human community from the powers of evil will happen by prayer and
peaceful engagement with our enemies rather than by violence” (33).
72 It is explained from the beginning in Boomershine, Messiah of Peace, 1–8. And there is
an “Appendix 8” with the Greek text of Mark printed per cola et commata with marks used to
indicate the various features of the episodes in the passion and resurrection narrative (368–86).
73 Messiah of Peace, 294–326 (passim in the section on Mark 15:33–47: “The death and
burial of Jesus”). For a video of Boomershine’s performance of the Mark 15:33–37, see https://
www.youtube.com/watch?v=fnPtuXiYcBw, from 27′07 to 28′26. There, one can see and hear
that a concrete performance has (many) changes to the printed text.
74 The sound map is found at Messiah of Peace, 384. For the explanation of the symbols and
the bold print, see 375.
3.1 καί τινες τῶν παρεστηκότων ἀκούσαντες ἔλεγον,
3.2 Ἴδε Ἠλίαν φωνεῖ.
4.1 δραμὼν δέ τις [καὶ] γεμίσας σπόγγον ὄξους περιθεὶς καλάμῳ* ἐπότιζεν αὐτόν λέγων,
4.2 Ἄφετε* ἴδωμεν εἰ* ἔρχεται* Ἠλίας καθελεῖν αὐτόν.
5.1 >ὁ δὲ Ἰησοῦς ἀφεὶς φωνὴν μεγάλην ἐξέπνευσεν.< (rounded with φωνεῖ and φωνῇ
μεγάλῃ)
The sound map is a very sophisticated system that helps us to see some interest-
ing stylistic, semantic, and other aspects of the text that will not become mani-
fest until they are performed orally. It is difficult to summarize Boomershine’s
commentary on this passage, which addresses the volume, the speed, the tempo,
the rhythm, the way of addressing the audience, the tonal quality, the joke and
humor, and the onomatopoeia – in short, all things that have to do with the
sound and the voice. The words in bold print are repetitions. They illustrate
some important issues in the passage: the time has become important for Mark
(the hour!), the word play with Eloi/Elijah,75 the loud cry, Jesus’s last breath, the
contrast between Jesus’s characterization at the moment of his death and the
mockery of the bystanders. Sometimes, Boomershine’s analysis is not different
from a “normal” narratological commentary:76
Thus, the Aramaic quotation reports Jesus’ cry in the context of its original historical
occurrence around 30 CE. The Greek translation, in which the storyteller expresses her
or his own anguish, sets the cry in the context of the storyteller’s relationship with the
audience in the present moment of the story at any subsequent time. Both Jesus’ sense of
abandonment and the storyteller’s anguish are thereby made present. The effect of the
episode is to establish identification with Jesus as a righteous man praying to God during
the most intense suffering. And, as a result of the connection between the quotation of
Jesus’ words in Aramaic and the storyteller’s translation of this most memorable line of the
psalm, along with the preceding allusions in 15:24 and 34, the entire crucifixion section is
set in the context of Israel’s tradition of righteous suffering.
The impression one can have when watching the video and reading the com-
mentary – this is the order Boomershine asks us to follow when reading his
book – is that it is difficult to make the bridge from the performance to the inter-
pretation in the commentary. I am not talking here about the sound aspects,
which would probably demand a more detailed, and specific investigation. I am
rather thinking of the idea of the “righteous sufferer” and the general interpre-
tation of the Messiah of peace. The question one could ask is, if one were to
propose a different dominant theme in the gospel of Mark (e. g., the Messianic
secret, the appeal of taking up one’s cross, the anti-empire counter-story, etc.),
would one perform in a different way than the one Boomershine is presenting
75 Boomershine explains how the misunderstanding by the bystanders (intentional or

simply poor hearing?) could be translated in English (but in his own performance he does not
change the words and keeps “Eloi,” “Elijah,” “God”).
76 Boomershine, Messiah of Peace, 306.
354 Geert Van Oyen
to his audience? In what sense is the performance itself a mirror of the inter-
pretation? This question is not a critique of the way the gospel is performed.
I only conclude that performance and exegetical interpretation need each other.
A performance needs to be enriched by interpretation.
The above examples of Shiner and Boomershine have made clear that the
ultimate aim of performance is touching the modern audience by an oral trans-
mission of the text as it was done – according to them – in the first century. If
one takes seriously the role of emotions in performance, as both authors do,
it is not at all surprising that the psychological dimension of the reception by
the audience needs more clarification.77 What are the conditions that have to be
fulfilled from the side of the audience to be touched by the story? How do the
markers in the text have an effect on the audience? This is exactly what Kirsten
Marie Hartvigsen does in Prepare the Way of the Lord. She offers a theoretical
basis and framework for a detailed analysis of audience involvement with events
and characters, and the emotional effects of such involvement.78 This is not an
easy task, since the “effects of the rhetoric cannot be employed to reconstruct
communities. It can only tell us which values, beliefs, and customs were com-
municated. The effects of the rhetoric would not depend on characteristics of
the narrative alone, but on factors determined by each audience member.”79
The large theoretical framework of Hartvigsen’s study on cognitive poetics and
psychonarratology is a necessary addition to the work of the performance critics
mentioned above and it certainly would demand a more serious treatment than
is possible in this paper.80 We therefore limit ourselves to some of her comments
on Mark 15:33–37.81
The effect of the performance on the audience of the story of Jesus’s death
will depend on the preceding story line and on their previous cultural knowl-
edge. Hartvigsen will therefore offer different possibilities of perceiving what
is heard.82 Depending on the traditions they belong to, audience members will
77 Boomershine (Messiah of Peace, 8–19) has some remarks on how he sees the psychology
of the audience in the sections called “Meaning in Texts Read by Silent Readers and in Stories
Heard by Audiences,” and “The Audiences of Mark.” “Thus, the alternative to ‘meaning as
reference’ can be called ‘meaning as experience.’ And ‘meaning as experience’ is dependent on
the willingness of audiences to enter fully into the story and to identify with the characters of
the story” (12).
78 Hartvigsen, Prepare the Way of the Lord, 4: “I hope to shed more light on processes
taking place in the mind of audience members, where processes of involvement, emotions, and
identity formation actually occur.”
79 Hartvigsen, Prepare the Way of the Lord, 14.
80 Hartvisen, Prepare the Way of the Lord, 33–99 (Part II).
81 Hartvigsen, Prepare the Way of the Lord, 507–9.
82 The commentary by Hartvigsen is characterized by the following conditional sentence
structure: “If audience members are familiar with …, then they will understand what is heard
as ….” In the conclusion we read: “In this study, the main variables were constituted by knowl-
edge of different types of cultural memory” (Hartvigsen, Prepare the Way of the Lord, 526).
draw on the Jewish and/or the Greco-Roman background when they hear the
time indications in 15:33. If an audience member knows the LXX (Amos 5:18,
20; Joel 2:1–2; 3:4) and he or she combines it with Mark 13:24 (σκοτίζεσθαι),
he will interpret it as an eschatological temporal marker. If he knows the Greco-
Roman tradition, he will consider darkness as a miraculous portent at the mo-
ment of the death of important human beings like Romulus, Cleomenes, Julius
Caesar. Anyway, the temporal indication accentuates the symbolic meaning of
Jesus’s death. In Mark 15:34 the audience is transported to the Markan world
through the use of Aramaic. Those who recognize Psalm 21:1 LXX will hear
that Jesus is using existing scripts to express his feeling of abandonment and
to pray to God in order to be saved.83 For audience members who heard Jesus
speaking in Aramaic and who heard the narrator’s translation (even if they do
not understand Aramaic), it becomes immediately clear that the bystanders mis-
understood Jesus’s utterance.
I am not giving enough credit to Hartvigsen’s study, which reveals the com-
plex processes that are at work in audience involvement. She herself mentions
three limitations of her own approach and I would like to repeat the first one.84
Hartvigsen’s reconstructed hypothetical audience is a “general group of audience
members located in a house church in antiquity.” She leaves for others to explore
how a performance “on the basis of a specific, text-external audience located in
a precise situation” would occur.85 I think this limitation is the main challenge
for performance criticism during the next years. It is not enough – and it is
extremely difficult – to try to unravel the cognitive processes at work in a first
century audience. But even if performance critics try to reconstruct the original
settings, performances now are done for very concrete audiences today. We live
in a completely different cultural situation and the encyclopedia of knowledge is
completely different. The interdisciplinary research field where biblical scholars
would work together with sociologists, anthropologists, and psychologists is a
huge unexplored territory.
83 Hartvigsen interprets the cry as a prayer. But see on the different interpretations of this
verse G. Van Oyen and P. Van Capellen, “Mark 15,34 and the Sitz im Leben of the Real Reader,”
ETL 91 (2015): 569–99.
84 Hartvigsen, Prepare the Way of the Lord, 535–36. The second shortcoming she mentions
is the fact that she did not pay enough attention to the gestures and the voice! That was exactly
what Boomershine, Shiner and others wanted to do. It seems that the importance of psycho-
narratology has pushed gesture and voice to the background. The third limitation is the focus
on the LXX as cultural heritage while research on other components of Jewish cultural memory
is needed.
85 Hartvigsen, Prepare the Way of the Lord, 535.
356 Geert Van Oyen
E. Conclusion
In the introduction I asked two questions. Let me conclude by two responses.

(1) Can performance criticism learn something from Quintilian’s chapter on
delivery in the Institutio oratoria? Yes, when it comes to the general ideas that
performing is an essential aspect in the communication of a text. It becomes
more difficult when it comes to the concrete elaboration of gestures and the use
of voice because especially gestures take place in concrete cultural environments.
Still, there are some characteristics of performing that transcend the concrete
situations: emotions.86
(2) In what way is the growing interest in performances of a gospel helpful for
exegetical methodology as a whole? I am pleading for a larger exegetical approach
than a purely written one. A cross-fertilization between written exegesis and oral
exegesis through performance could open up the exegetical work towards new
dimensions that are not fully developed yet today: the role of emotions is one of
them and the psychological (individual and group) factors that are present when
the audience actively participates in a performance is another one. There is no
need for a schism between the written text of Mark and the oral performance of
it today. Although there are many differences between the written text and the
oral performance, there are also many similarities. A written commentary can
only become better when someone performs it. An oral performance can only
become better when the performer comments on it.
86 A recent example of a concrete study on emotions is M. R. Whitenton, “Feeling the

Silence: A Moment-by-Moment Account of Emotions at the End of Mark (16:1–8),” CBQ 78
(2016): 272–89.
Part Three
The Growth of the Gospel Tradition

in Early Christian Literary Culture
The Foundations of Matthean Ethics
R. Alan Culpepper
In this essay, I propose to examine the intersection of three subjects that have
attracted considerable recent scholarship: the genre of the gospels, the ethics of
the gospels, and the place of Matthew in early Jewish Christianity. The result,
I hope, will move us closer to the goal of being able to produce a “grammar” of
Matthean ethics.1
Scholarship on the genre of the gospels, and specifically the gospels as
biographies, now generally affirms the affinity of the gospels, and Matthew in
particular, with the biographies that transmit the teachings of their subject,
one of the philosophers in the Greek tradition or Moses in the Jewish tradition.
Wayne A. Meeks determined that “didactic biography was a specifically Hellenis-
tic genre,” and that Matthew presents Jesus as a teacher of wisdom, like Ben Sira.2
After classifying ancient biographies according to their function(s), Charles
H. Talbert concluded that the Gospel of Matthew was a “Type E biography”;
that is, “it was written so as to present the career of Jesus both as a legitimation
of his teaching-legislation and as a hermeneutical clue to its meaning.”3 We will
return to this point below.
Richard A. Burridge has made groundbreaking contributions both in the
analysis of Matthew as biography and in the interpretation of Matthean ethics.
The title of the chapter on Matthew in Imitating Jesus: An Inclusive Approach
to New Testament Ethics expresses the centrality of ethics for Matthew: “Being
Truly Righteous.”4 Burridge is surely right in his observation that “Matthew’s
view of Jesus as the true interpreter is the hermeneutical key to his ethical under-
standing of the law and love all the way through the gospel,”5 and that this view is
1 See J. G van der Watt, A Grammar of the Ethics of John: Reading John from an Ethical Per-
spective, vol. 1, WUNT 431 (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2019). See also, W. A. Meeks, The Moral
World of the First Christians (Philadelphia: Westminster, 1986), ch. 5, “The Grammar of Early
Christian Morals.”
2 Meeks, Moral World, 138.
3 C. H. Talbert, What Is a Gospel? The Genre of the Canonical Gospels (Philadelphia: For-
tress, 1977), 134. Cf. P. L. Shuler, A Genre for the Gospels: The Biographical Character of Mat-
thew (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1982), esp. 105–6. See also R. A. Burridge, What Are the Gospels?
A Comparison with Graeco-Roman Biography, SNTSMS 70 (Cambridge: Cambridge University
Press, 1992), 84–89, 244.
4 R. A. Burridge, Imitating Jesus: An Inclusive Approach to New Testament Ethics (Grand
Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 2007), 187.
5 Burridge, Imitating Jesus, 212.
360 R. Alan Culpepper
developed not just in the Sermon on the Mount but in Jesus’s deeds as well as his
teachings throughout the Gospel. It is significant therefore that Matthew wrote
a gospel that recounts not only what Jesus taught but what he did, so that Jesus’s
followers could emulate him as well as follow his teachings.6
After reviewing the current approaches to an ethical reading of the Gospel of
John, Jan G. van der Watt observes that “two basic pillars usually form part of the
definition of ethics, namely, what ought to be done (i. e., the deeds) and why this
ought to be done (the motivation or rationale behind particular deeds).”7 These
pillars lead to a working definition of “ethics” that involves (1) “systematic reflec-
tion on and description of issues that relate to positive (and negative) actions,”
(2) “critically reflecting on behaviour,” including both the why (the rationale)
and the what (the expected behavior), and (3) reflection on “how the ‘why’ and
‘what’ are structurally and logically interrelated,” which is foundational for a
“grammar of ethics.”8 “Ethics” is also related to but distinct from “morals” and
“ethos.” Engaging the work of Michael Wolter, van der Watt describes ethos as
“the canon of institutionalized practices” of the gospel community, such as the
observance of food laws, circumcision, feast days, and particular meals.9 These
institutionalized actions also clarify the identity of a group. Morals focus on ex-
pected actions or rules of behavior. When the full range of explicit and implicit
warrants, values, and behaviors represented in a gospel are considered, one can
speak of “a total communication strategy.”10 Writing a grammar of ethics is there-
fore an interpretative process that requires a comprehensive examination of
the text within its socio-cultural context.11 Obviously, such a project far exceeds
what can be accomplished in a single, short paper, so at best we will attempt
a prolegomenon for future research that examines the “why,” the rationale or
warrants for ethical behavior in Matthew.
Turning to the place of Matthew in early Christianity, we note that recent
scholarship suggests that Matthew wrote for a community of Christian Jews,
Jews who believed in Jesus as the Messiah of Israel but continued to be law
observant.12 The network of Matthean relationships defined by its sources, tradi-
6 So also D. C. Allison, Jr., “Structure, Biographical Impulse, and the Imitatio Christi,” in
idem, Studies in Matthew: Interpretation Past and Present (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Academic,
2005), 135–62, esp. 149–53; and M. Konradt, “‘Nehmt auf euch mein Joch und lernt von mir!’
(Mt 11,29): Mt 11,28–30 und die christologische Dimension der matthäischen Ethik,” ZNW 109
(2018): 1–31.
7 Van der Watt, Grammar of the Ethics of John, 23.
9 M. Wolter, Theologie und Ethos im frühen Christentum: Studien zu Jesus, Paulus und
Lukas, WUNT 236 (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2009), 133–36.
11 Van der Watt, Grammar of the Ethics of John, 50–53.
12 This paragraph and the next are a distillation of a paper on “The Place of Matthew in
Early Christianity” that I presented at a conference on Matthew in Moscow, September 24–28,
The Foundations of Matthean Ethics 361
tions, and closely related contemporary documents,13 points to Antioch more

than to any other early Christian center. Ulrich Luz comments, “In general we
can say that the smaller and more remote a community of Matthew is, the more
difficult it is to explain the rapid spread of the Gospel of Matthew.”14 Antioch was
strongly advocated by B. H. Streeter and continues to be the most widely accept-
ed provenance for the composition of Matthew, with Galilee as an alternative.15
Those who start from the Gospel narrative, especially its focus on the Galilean
region, its conflict with formative Judaism, and its characterization of the Phar-
isees, generally turn toward Galilee as Matthew’s provenance, suggesting either
Tiberias or Sepphoris as the setting reflected in Matthew.16 Four factors define
the contentious atmosphere of the period in which Matthew was written: (1)
Jesus followers were still part of the synagogue and Jewish communities but were
separating from them, (2) they and other Jews were dealing with the aftermath
of the Jewish war and the destruction of the temple, (3) Gentile churches were
emerging, and (4) the apostles and eyewitnesses were passing from the scene but
adherents of James, Peter, Paul, and John appealed to their apostolic authority.
The compromise Matthew effected maintained observance of the law while
embracing the mission to the nations as well as to Israel, expounded an inter-
pretation of the law it traced to Jesus while opposing the Pharisees, maintained
relations with the synagogue while endorsing the establishment of churches, and
2018, and that will appear in Matthew in Moscow, ed. K.‑W. Niebuhr and M. Seleznev, WUNT
(Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, [forthcoming]).
13 E. K. Broadhead, The Gospel of Matthew on the Landscape of Antiquity, WUNT 378
(Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2017); and Culpepper, “Place of Matthew in Early Christianity.”
14 U. Luz, Matthew: A Commentary, ed. H. Koester, trans. J. E. Crouch, 3 vols., Hermeneia
(Minneapolis: Fortress, 2001–2007), 1:57.
15 B. H. Streeter, The Four Gospels: A Study of Origins (London: Macmillan, 1951), 486–87,
500–23; cf. W. D. Davies and D. C. Allison, Jr., A Critical and Exegetical Commentary on the
Gospel according to Saint Matthew, 3 vols., ICC (Edinburgh: T&T Clark, 1988–1997), 1:143–
47; Luz, Matthew, 1:56–58 (but tentatively); R. E. Brown, An Introduction to the New Testament,
ABRL (New York: Doubleday, 1997), 212–16; M. Konradt, Israel, Church, and the Gentiles in
the Gospel of Matthew, trans. K. Ess (Waco, TX: Baylor University Press, 2014), 364–65; D. C.
Sim, The Gospel of Matthew and Christian Judaism: The History and Social Setting of the Mat-
thean Community, SNTW (Edinburgh: T&T Clark, 1998); idem, “Matthew and Ignatius of
Antioch,” in Matthew and His Christian Contemporaries, ed. idem and B. Repschinski, LNTS
333 (London: T&T Clark, 2008), 139–54. In support of Galilee, see J. A. Overman, Church
and Community in Crisis: The Gospel according to Matthew (Valley Forge, PA: Trinity Press
International, 1996), 16–19; B. Witherington III, Matthew, SHBC (Macon: Smyth & Helwys,
2006), 22–28 (Capernaum). For a summary and critique of the arguments for locating Matthew
in Galilee, see D. C. Sim, “The Gospel of Matthew and Galilee: An Evaluation of an Emerging
Hypothesis,” ZNW 107 (2016): 141–69.
16 J. A. Overman, Matthew’s Gospel and Formative Judaism: The Social World of the Mat-
thean Community (Minneapolis: Fortress, 1990), 158–59; idem, Church and Community in
Crisis, 16–19; A. Runesson, “Rethinking Early Jewish-Christian Relations: Matthean Com-
munity History as Pharisaic Intragroup Conflict,” JBL 127 (2008): 95–132, 107; cf. Sim, “Gospel
of Matthew and Galilee,” 144–55.
established the authority of Peter rather than James or Paul. Whether Matthew
represents a single community or a group of Christian Jewish communities
is difficult to determine, but the latter is probable, if only on the basis of the
number of streams of tradition the Gospel incorporates.
In the paragraphs that follow, we will examine three bases or warrants for
ethical behavior to which Matthew appeals. When one pursues the “why,” the
rationale for ethical behavior in Matthew, these three warrants keep recurring:
Christology, scripture, and eschatology.
A. Christology
Burridge captures key themes in the Gospel when he observes that “Matthew’s
Christology is constantly concerned to depict Jesus as the truly righteous inter-
preter of the law in all his teaching, especially ethics, as well as in his deeds.”17
A few observations about Matthew’s Christology will expose the relationship
between Christology and ethics in Matthew and the importance of Jesus’s role as
the interpreter of the law and the prophets.
That Jesus set forth for his followers teachings regarding how the scriptures
should be interpreted would hardly have been surprising; in fact it would have
been expected. A brief reminder of a well-known passage in the Damascus
Document, CD 6.2–11 and its context, will illustrate a contemporary parallel.
Graham Stanton regards the Damascus Document as a “close comparison” with
the Gospel of Matthew, since both legitimate their respective communities in
relation to a parent community from which they had separated.18 The times
are characterized as “the age of desolation of the land,” because Israel’s leaders
led them astray, “spoke of rebellion against God’s precepts through the hand of
Moses,” and “prophesied deceit” (CD 5.19–6.1).
But God remembered the covenant of the very first, and from Aaron raised men of
knowledge and from Israel wise men, and forced them to listen. And they dug the well:
Num 21:18 “A well which the princes dug, when the nobles of the people delved with the
staff.” The well is the law. And those who dug it are the converts of Israel, who left the
land of Judah and lived in the land of Damascus, all of whom God called princes, for they
sought him, and their renown has not been repudiated in anyone’s mouth. Blank And
the staff is the interpreter of the law, of whom Isaiah said: Isa 54:16 “He produces a tool
for his labour.” Blank And the nobles of the people are those who have arrived to dig the
well with the staves that the scepter decreed, to walk in them throughout the whole age of
17 Burridge, Imitating Jesus, 220.

18 G. N. Stanton, “Matthew’s Gospel and the Damascus Document in Sociological Per-
spective,” in idem, A Gospel for a New People: Studies in Matthew (Edinburgh: T&T Clark,
1992), 85–107, but Stanton does not deal with CD 6.2–11; see also T. R. Blanton IV, “Saved
by Obedience: Matthew 1:21 in Light of Jesus’ Teaching on Torah,” JBL 132 (2013): 393–413,
406–7.
wickedness, and without which they will not obtain it, until there arises he who teaches
justice at the end of days. (CD 6.2–11a)19
Although the references to various figures and groups at the beginning of this
midrashic interpretation of Num 21:18 (the Torah) and Isa 54:16 (the Prophets)
have been debated, its general sense is clear.20 The image of the Torah as a well
occurs elsewhere (CD 3.16; 19.34), and the midrash plays on the similarity of
“well” (‫ ) ְב ֵא֖ר‬and “explain” (‫)ּבֵ ֵא֛ר‬. The images hold together beautifully. The
“princes” dig the well (Torah) with the help of the teachings or tool (staves) of
the interpreter of the law. Other passages extend this metaphor: “living water”
flows from the well and waters the “eternal plantation,” the Qumran community
(1QH 2.18; 8.4, 16).21
García Martínez summarizes the role of the Teacher of Righteousness as
follows:
The Teacher of Righteousness’s consciousness of having received through divine reve-
lation the correct interpretation of the Law led him to propound a series of ideological and
legal positions (imminence of the last days, a particular festive calendar, the imperfection
of the existing Temple and cult compared with what they should be, etc.) and of partic-
ular halakhoth conditioning daily life (MMT, 11QTemple) and to wish to impose on all
members of the Essene community this understanding of the Law.22
Both the Qumran community and the Matthean community were concerned
with ethics and both adopted the hermeneutical program of its founder, the
Teacher of Righteousness and Jesus respectively, but as Wayne Meeks observed,
the Qumran community produced rulebooks and interpretations of scripture
(the pesharim), while the Matthean community wrote a biography, the Gospel.23
Matthew interprets Jesus as the Messiah of Israel who came in a time of
desolation of the land to challenge Israel’s false leaders and call Israel to fulfill
the law and the prophets. Matthew carefully constructs Jesus’s identity as the
Son of David, the Messiah of Israel before it introduces Jesus’s teachings on
righteousness.24 In the first verse, Jesus is heralded as “the Messiah, the Son of
19 F. García Martínez, The Dead Sea Scrolls Translated: The Qumran Texts in English, trans.
W. G. E. Watson, 2nd ed. (Leiden: Brill, 1996), 36–37.
20 P. Borgen, Bread from Heaven: An Exegetical Study of the Concept of Manna in the Gospel
of John and the Writings of Philo, NovTSup 11 (Leiden: Brill, 1965), 38–43, 51–52, cites ex-
amples of the midrashic practice of interpreting a Torah text in light of a subordinate text, often
from the prophets.
21 Cf. R. A. Culpepper, The Johannine School: An Evaluation of the Johannine-School
Hypothesis Based on an Investigation of the Nature of Ancient Schools, SBLDS 26 (Missoula, MT:
Scholars Press, 1975), repr. (2007), 162–64.
22 F. García Martínez, “Qumran Origins and Early History: A Groningen Hypothesis,” FO
25 (1988): 113–36, 125, quoted by Stanton, “Matthew’s Gospel and the Damascus Document,”
95–96 n. 3.
23 Meeks, Moral World, 143.
24 See L. Novakovic, “Matthew’s ‘Messianization’ of Mark,” in “A Temple Not Made with
David, the son of Abraham” (1:1). The genealogy that follows not only traces
Jesus’s lineage from Abraham and David to Joseph but is also structured in three
periods – from Abraham to David, from David to the exile, and from the exile
to Joseph – each with fourteen generations. The key to this pattern, which is
underlined in Matt 1:17 but not explained, is probably to be found in gematria:
the sum of the numerical value of the Hebrew consonants in “David” is fourteen.
Boris Repschinski identifies Matt 1:21, “for he will save his people from their
sins,” as the prooimion, “a road map to what follows.”25 As we will see, Jesus
effects this salvation through both his teaching on Torah observance and his
sacrificial death.26
The birth and infancy of Jesus are then narrated with recurring formula
quotations that illustrate how the narrated events fulfilled the scriptures, and
typologically associated Jesus with Moses, suggesting that Jesus would be, if not
a new lawgiver, a divinely authorized interpreter of the law in the tradition of
Moses – the “Messianic Teacher.”27 This messianic role fuels the conflict with
the religious leaders over Jesus’s authority. Jesus asserts that if they understood
the scriptures – indeed, if they had read the scriptures (12:3, 5; 19:4; 21:16, 42;
22:31) – they would understand that what he did fulfilled the law and the pro-
phets. In the unfolding Gospel narrative, Jesus’s authority is based not only on
his identity as Son of David and Son of Abraham, his identity as Son of God, and
the Moses typology, but also on his refusal to succumb to Satan’s temptations,
his appeal to and fulfillment of the scriptures, his empowerment by the Spirit,
the miracles he performs, the authority he claims (9:2, 6; 11:27; 21:23–27;
28:18), the transfiguration, the events that accompany his death, and ultimately
the resurrection.28
The Sermon on the Mount concludes with Jesus’s admonition that those who
hear his words and do them are like a wise man (7:24–27). Jesus’s words embody
wisdom (11:19; 12:42; 13:54).29 The crowds who hear him, however, are as-
tounded. The narrator reports, “for he taught them as one having authority”
(7:29) – the first reference to authority in the Gospel (cf. 8:9; 9:6, 8; 10:1 and
later in the Gospel, 21:23, 24, 27; and 28:18). Likewise, the crowd of spectators
Hands”: Essays in Honor of Naymond H. Keathley, ed. M. C. Parsons and R. Walsh (Eugene,
OR: Pickwick, 2018), 13–27.
25 B. Repschinski, “‘For He Will Save His People from Their Sins’ (Matthew 1:21): A Chris-
tology for Christian Jews,” CBQ 68 (2006): 248–67, 251–52, who cites Aristotle, Rhet. 3.14.5–6.
26 See Blanton, “Saved by Obedience.”
27 C. R. Holladay, Introduction to the New Testament: Reference Edition (Waco, TX: Baylor
University Press, 2017), 215.
28 For a fuller discussion of Jesus’s authority in Matthew see K. Lee and F. P. Viljoen, “The
Ultimate Commission: The Key for the Gospel according to Matthew,” AcT 30 (2010): 66–71.
29 See M. J. Suggs, Wisdom, Christology, and Law in Matthew’s Gospel (Cambridge, MA:
Harvard University Press, 1970); C. M. Deutsch, Lady Wisdom, Jesus and the Sages: Metaphor
and Social Context in Matthew’s Gospel (Valley Forge, PA: Trinity Press International, 1996);
and Witherington, Matthew, 16–21.
at the healing of paralyzed man “glorified God, who had given such authority to
human beings” (9:8). Jesus’s teachings are like new wine (9:17), but he preserves
the old as well as the new. Jesus even claims: “All things have been handed over
to me by my Father” (11:27).
When the Pharisees question him about divorce, Jesus asks if they have not
read the teaching on marriage (19:4). Moses’s command was due to their “hard-
ness of heart” (19:7–8); Jesus intensifies the prohibition against divorce, pointing
to God’s intention that the two become “one flesh” (Gen 2:24). Similarly, when
someone asks him, “What good deed must I do to have eternal life?” (19:16),
Jesus answers by pointing him to the commandments (the Decalogue) first
and then adds that if he wished to be teleios (cf. 5:48; “perfect,” or “blameless,”
rendering the Hebrew tam, Job 1:1), he must “go, sell your possessions, and give
the money to the poor … then come follow me.”30 Like the law and the prophets,
Jesus’s words will never pass away (24:35). Here the reader is cued to recall that
earlier Jesus said the same thing about the law and the prophets (5:18). Just as
the authority of scripture is eternal, so also is the authority of Jesus’s teachings,
which set forth the principles by which the scriptures are to be interpreted.
The last line of the Gospel completes the construction of Jesus’s authority and
the centrality of his teaching: “All authority on heaven and on earth has been
given to me” (28:18). Having declared his authority, the risen Lord commissions
his disciples: “make disciples of all nations … teaching them to obey everything
that I have commanded you” (28:20). Because of Matthew’s redundancy in the
identification of Jesus with scripture, the repetition of explicit commentary
affirming the fulfillment of scriptures, and the repetition of claims for the
authority of Jesus’s words as the hermeneutic by which the law is to be inter-
preted, the reader is prepared for this final call to obedience to Jesus’s teachings.
In the mission to the nations, Jesus’s disciples will call others to live by Jesus’s
teachings, which set forth the basis by which the scriptures are to be interpreted.
The meaning of Emmanuel, therefore, lies precisely in the eternal authority of
Jesus’s teachings: Jesus’s words will never pass away.
B. Scripture
Matthew 5:17–20 is one of the most debated passages in the Gospel because

it deals with the critical issue of Jesus’s relationship to the law, and provides a
window into the Matthean setting. Burridge takes this statement as confirming
“a middle way between abolition and minute observance,”31 pointing to a
“middle path between antinomianism and Pharisaic legalism.”32 I will argue for a
30 Davies and Allison, Gospel according to Saint Matthew, 1:560–63.
31 Imitating Jesus, 209.
32 Imitating Jesus, 211, cf. 224.
slight but significant modification of this characterization of Matthew’s position.

While it is clear that on the one hand Matthew’s Jesus rejects antinomianism,
apparently as practiced by other Christian groups, and combats the Pharisees
on the other hand, it is not their legalism that Jesus rejects but their hypocrisy
and their neglect of the “weightier” matters of the law. Jesus’s affirmation of the
continuing validity of the law seems to anticipate objections that might be raised
regarding the antitheses that follow. Therefore, Matthew’s Jesus affirms the
enduring validity of the law, possibly in response to charges of antinomianism
from the Pharisees.
The admonition, “do not suppose,” in Matt 5:17 implies that some were
leveling precisely this charge against Jesus and/or his followers. In response,
Jesus asserts that he has come not to abolish “the law or the prophets” but to
fulfill them (5:17). The phrase, “the law and the prophets,” had come to mean all
of the sacred scriptures (cf. Matt 11:13; Luke 16:16; 24:44; John 1:45; Rom 3:21;
Zech 7:12; Sir 1:1; 2 Macc 15:9; 4 Macc 18:10). The conjunction or in place of
the more common and conveys an emphatic denial; Jesus did not set aside any
part of the scriptures, the law or the prophets. The addition of “or the prophets”
(cf. 7:12; 11:13) shifts the emphasis on fulfillment from the law to the scriptures
and sets up Matthew’s emphasis on the prophets’ call for justice and mercy.33
The fulfillment of the scriptures in the life and teachings of Jesus is one of
the most pronounced themes in Matthew.34 In word and deed Jesus shows how
scripture should be interpreted – with an emphasis on purity of heart, love, jus-
tice, and mercy. Jesus’s followers, therefore, are expected to keep the law in every
detail (5:19). They should be more righteous – in light of Jesus’s teachings on
righteousness – than even the scribes and the Pharisees.35
For our purposes, it is significant that this opening declaration regarding the
continuing validity of the law is followed by repeated warnings that disciples will
be judged by what they do or do not do, and that Matthew includes instructions
on a variety of specific issues: Sabbath observance (12:2, 5–7, 11–12), prayer
(6:5–13; 7:7–11), fasting (6:16–18), almsgiving (6:2–4), oaths (5:33–37; 23:16–
22), divorce (5:31–32; 19:1–9), tithing (23:23), and other issues addressed by the
33 R. A. Guelich, The Sermon on the Mount: A Foundation for Understanding (Waco, TX:
Word, 1982), 138, 142.
34 This section reproduces and abbreviates portions of R. A. Culpepper, “Matthew and
John: Reflections of Early Christianity in Relationship to Judaism,” in John and Judaism: A Con-
tested Relationship in Context, ed. idem and P. N. Anderson, RBS 87 (Atlanta: SBL Press, 2017),
189–219, 193, 197–98.
35 For a helpful overview of interpretations of Matt 5:17–20 in relation to the Sitz im
Leben of Matthew, see F. P. Viljoen, “Matthew and the Torah in Jewish Society,” In die Skriflig/
In Luce Verbi 49/2 (2015): doi: 10.4102/ids.v49i2.1946 (http://www.indieskriflig.org.za/index.
php/skriflig/article/view/1946). W. Reinbold (“Das Mattäusevangelium, die Pharisäer und die
Tora,” BZ n. s. 50 [2006]: 51–73) concludes that Matthew maintains that the authority of the
teaching of the scribes and Pharisees from the seat of Moses should be recognized and that
Jesus’s followers should be more righteous than the scribes and the Pharisees (61–62).
Torah. The reference to the “least” of the commands in Matt 5:19 opens the way
for Jesus’s debates later about the “light” and “heavy” things of the law. In a way
not unlike the rabbis (m. ʾAbot 2:1; 4:2), Matthew offers guidance on the essence
of the law: the “Golden Rule” in its positive form, which Matthew says is “the law
and the prophets” (7:12); and the greatest command – the love command (22:36–
40). The “light” things of the law – tithing mint, dill, and cumin – ought not to be
neglected, but the “heavy” things of the law – justice, mercy, and faithfulness –
are more important (23:23). There is no debate in Matthew regarding whether
Jesus’s followers ought to keep the law, only how the law is to be interpreted, and
what its essence is.36 Jesus interprets, radicalizes, and prioritizes mitzvoth (com-
mands; see 12:5), but he does not abolish, relax, or supersede the law.
The demand to be “more righteous” was not unusual. In this context, as in
the scrolls, it implies obedience to a higher standard of righteousness – one that
Jesus explains in the teachings that follow: the antitheses, the love command,
and the demand for compassion and mercy (see 6:1, 33; 21:32). Only by giving
attention to the “weightier” matters of the law could one attain a “righteousness”
greater than the scribes and Pharisees. Hans Dieter Betz summarized the matter
aptly: “The very purpose of the SM was to demonstrate that Jesus’ teachings are
the greater righteousness.”37
Matthew uses quotations to interpret or comment on events and show there-
by that Jesus fulfilled the scriptures. In particular, Matthew uses the scriptures
to demonstrate that Jesus was the Davidic Messiah of Israel and to authorize
and illustrate Jesus’s interpretation of the law and the prophets. What concerns
us here is that sub-set of quotations in which Jesus validates his teachings on
various ethical issues.
The most prominent of these is Jesus’s response to the expert in the law
regarding which is the “greatest” commandment (Matt 22:34–40). The reference
to the Pharisees in the introduction ties Jesus’s hermeneutic to Matthew’s anti-
Pharisaic polemic. The differences between Matthew and Mark point to Mat-
thew’s interpretation of this tradition. Rather than a philosophical discussion
about the “first” command, Matthew elevates the level of debate. In Matthew,
Jesus is challenged by one of the Pharisees’ legal experts (a nomikos, Matt 22:35;
Luke 10:25), and Matthew shapes Jesus’s response as a hermeneutical program.38
The nomikos asks, “which commandment in the law is the greatest,” focusing on
Torah and giving no thought to there being a second command. Jesus’s response
36 See also Suggs, Wisdom, Christology, and Law, 117–19.
37 H. D. Betz, The Sermon on the Mount: A Commentary on the Sermon on the Mount, In-
cluding the Sermon on the Plain (Matthew 5:3–7:27 and Luke 6:20–49), ed. A. Yarbro Collins,
Hermeneia (Minneapolis: Fortress, 1995), 197.
38 B. Gerhardsson, “The Hermeneutic Program in Matthew 22:37–40,” in Jews, Greeks, and
Christians: Religious Cultures in Late Antiquity, Essays in Honor of William David Davies, ed.
R. Hamerton-Kelly and R. Scroggs, SJLA 21 (Leiden: Brill, 1976), 129–50, here 134; B. Ger-
hardsson, The Ethos of the Bible, trans. S. Westerholm (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1981).
in Matthew adds three statements not found in Mark: (1) “this is the greatest
and first commandment,” (2) “a second is like it”: “you shall love your neighbor
as yourself ” (Lev 19:18), and (3) “on these two commandments hang all the law
and the prophets” (22:40). The effect of these changes is that Matthew affirms
the continuing authority of the law, emphasizes serving God out of love, expands
the basis for one’s ethic to include the prophets, and makes the command to love
one’s neighbor an expression of one’s love of God and the norm by which one
is to determine what is of greatest importance. As Birger Gerhardsson observed,
“what has been acquired in this way is an instrument for evaluation, selection, and
radical interpretation …. Only that which regulates the concern for one’s fellow
man is included in the primary sphere of interest.”39 We must take care here.
Jesus does not go on to say, as Gerhardsson does, that the other commandments
“will become obsolete in the course of time,”40 nor does Jesus distinguish ritual
law from ethical law,41 making only the latter binding, but he does castigate the
Pharisees for tithing “mint, dill, and cumin” while they neglect justice and mercy
and faithfulness. “It is these you ought to have practiced without neglecting the
others” (23:23).
In the antitheses in Matt 5:21–48, Jesus selects legal matters that concern
one’s treatment of one’s neighbor and responds with radicalizing “transfor-
mative initiatives,” as Glen H. Stassen called them. Stassen identified a triadic
structure in the fourteen units in Matt 5:21–7:11. Each unit contains a statement
of traditional righteousness (“you shall not kill”), the vicious cycle plus judg-
ment (nursing anger or saying, “you fool”), and a transforming initiative. The
emphasis falls on the transforming initiative: be reconciled, remove the cause of
temptation, turn the other cheek, love your enemies and pray for them.42
At the conclusion of this section of the Sermon on the Mount, Matthew adds
another summarizing statement of the essence of the law: “In everything then
[οὖν] do to others as you would have them do to you; for this is the law and the
prophets” (7:12). The inferential particle οὖν (then, therefore), ties this verse to
the preceding material, not just the immediately preceding verses. The addition
of the word “everything” (πάντα) gives the Golden Rule the character of a uni-
versal ethical principle. By putting the instruction positively, Jesus prompted his
followers to think about what they would want others to do for them and then
to act accordingly. In this respect, it is an extension and generalization of the
“transforming initiatives.” It also forms a bracket or conclusion for the sayings
in 7:1–2 about judging and the measure we give. Closely related is the demand
39 Gerhardsson, “Hermeneutic Program,” 140.

40 Gerhardsson, “Hermeneutic Program,” 140.
41 See E. P. Sanders, Judaism: Practice and Belief 63 BCE – 66 CE (Minneapolis: Fortress,
2016), 318–19, 422–27.
42 G. H. Stassen, “The Fourteen Triads of the Sermon on the Mount,” JBL 122 (2003):
267–308.
that Jesus’s followers forgive others their trespasses (6:14–15). The unforgiving
servant, like the debtor in the parable, will not be forgiven (18:25–35).
Not to be missed is the unrestricted demand to forgive, do unto, and show
mercy to “others.” The scope is not limited to one’s neighbor or fellow disciple.
Just as Jesus earlier demanded love for one’s enemy (5:43–47), so the Golden
Rule requires that we do for our enemy what we would want them to do for us.
The evil we might contemplate must be replaced by a standard of good we would
want for ourselves. By adding the summary word, “for this is the law and the pro-
phets,” Matthew casts Jesus again as the authoritative interpreter of scripture and
forms another bracket, this time with the reference to “the law or the prophets”
in 5:17. While the emphasis in 5:17–20 was on the continuing authority of the
law, the teachings that follow interpret what it means to keep the law.
Jesus quotes Hos 6:6, “I desire mercy, not sacrifice,” in two contexts in Mat-
thew. Johanan ben Zakkai appealed to this verse while looking at the ruins of
the temple, as providing “another means of atonement which is as effective [as
sacrifices]” (ʾAbot R. Nat. 4 [version B 8]),43 yet this verse does not appear in
any of the other gospels. In the first context, this quotation concludes Jesus’s
exchange with the Pharisees regarding his eating with tax collectors and sinners.
By eating with these outcasts, Jesus tends the sick; he shows mercy. His challenge
to the Pharisees is “go and learn what this means” (9:13). Hos 6:6 drives a wedge
between the cultic and the prophetic, prioritizing the latter over the former,
and Matthew appropriates this wedge: “The Gospel of Matthew thus poses one
line of Jewish tradition (prophetic) over against another Jewish voice (cultic,
legal).”44 Eating and drinking with, or “calling” “tax collectors and sinners” is an
act of mercy, and therefore an important part of Jesus’s fulfillment of “the law
and the prophets” (5:17).
The second context in which Hos 6:6 is quoted is also a confrontation with
the Pharisees, this time over plucking grain on the Sabbath. Jesus’s argument is
subtle. As in Mark 2:23–26, Jesus cites the precedent of David allowing his men to
eat “the bread of the Presence” (1 Sam 21:6; Exod 25:30; Lev 24:5–9; Matt 12:4).
But then Jesus asks, “Or have you not read in the law that on the sabbath the priests
in the temple break the sabbath and yet are guiltless?” (Matt 12:5). Sacrifices
had to be offered on the sabbath (Num 28:9–10). Davies and Allison explain the
point: “First, the priests prove that Scripture allows at least one exception to the
general sabbath rule. Secondly, since the violation of the sabbath was done for
the sake of the temple, this shows that the temple service takes precedence over
sabbath observance.”45 Then, Jesus presses the argument a step further: “I tell
43 W. D. Davies, The Setting of the Sermon on the Mount (Cambridge: Cambridge University
Press, 1966), 306–7; D. C. Allison, Jr., “The Configuration of the Sermon on the Mount and Its
Meaning,” in idem, Studies in Matthew, 173–215, 212–14.
44 Broadhead, Gospel of Matthew, 270.
45 Davies and Allison, Gospel according to Saint Matthew, 2:314.
you, something greater than the temple is here” (12:6). Interpreters have sug-
gested, probably rightly, that Jesus is referring either to himself or to the kingdom
of God, as in 12:41–42.46 Taking a different tack, however, others give due weight
to the neuter, “something [μεῖζον, neuter] greater than the temple is here,” and
read verse 6 in context, where it is followed by Jesus’s quotation of Hos 6:6 in the
next verse: “Mercy [ἔλεος, neuter] I desire and not sacrifice.” If mercy is greater
than sacrifice and sacrifice greater than sabbath observance, then mercy (in this
case for the hungry) should take precedence over sabbath observance. Jesus does
not dispute the command to observe the sabbath but places the priority of mercy
even above sabbath observance.47 Because the Pharisees condemn the disciples
for violating the sabbath to meet their need for sustenance, Jesus says they do
not know what the prophet’s words mean. The juxtaposition of the demand
for mercy over against sabbath observance goes straight to the “hermeneutical
program” set forth in Jesus’s interpretation of the Shema. That is, by showing
mercy – a measure of one’s love for one’s neighbor – one demonstrates love for
God. The reverse is also implied: by elevating the sabbath command over God’s
desire for mercy, the Pharisees showed that they do not know the meaning of
loving God with all one’s heart, soul, and mind.
A similar understanding is reflected in the ethical imperative of purity of
heart in Matthew. Ps 24:3–6 says:
Who shall ascend the hill of the LORD? And who shall stand in his holy place? Those who
have clean hands and pure hearts, who do not lift up their souls to what is false, and do
not swear deceitfully. They will receive blessing from the LORD, and vindication from the
God of their salvation. Such is the company of those who seek him, who seek the face of
the God of Jacob. (NRSV)
The italicized phrases contain the essential components of the beatitude in

Matt 5:8, “Blessed are the pure in heart for they shall see God.” The setting of
Psalm 24 is cultic, as it speaks to what is required of those who “shall stand in this
holy place.” The assumption is that one must purify oneself before one can stand
in the presence of God, which led to the practice of washing and ritual purity (t.
Yad. 2:20; 1QS 5.13).48 Betz observes that the language of this beatitude implies
“critical reflection about purity and related rituals.”49
46 E. Schweizer, The Good News according to Matthew, trans. D. E. Green (Atlanta: John
Knox, 1975), 278 (kingdom); similarly, A. Runesson, Divine Wrath and Salvation in Matthew:
The Narrative World of the First Gospel (Minneapolis: Fortress, 2016), 150; Davies and Allison,
Gospel according to Saint Matthew, 2:314, adopt the masculine variant (μείζων) and interpret it
as a reference to Jesus.
47 Luz, Matthew, 2:181–83; F. S. Spencer, “Scripture, Hermeneutics, and Matthew’s Jesus,”
Int 64 (2010): 368–78, 373; Konradt, Israel, Church, and the Gentiles, 111 n. 129.
48 H. K. Harrington, “Purity and Impurity,” EDEJ (2010): 1121–23; Sanders, Judaism,
364–78.
49 Betz, Sermon on the Mount, 134.
Insistence on inward purity and a right spirit did not originate with Jesus.50
The Psalmist prayed, “create in me a clean heart, O God” (Ps 51:10; cf. 73:1).
In Hebrew anthropology (at least metaphorically) the heart was the core of the
person, the seat of feeling and conviction. One’s heart could be glad (Exod 4:14;
Deut 28:47; Prov 27:11), hardened (Exod 4:21; 7:13), generous (Exod 35:5),
upright (Deut 9:5), penitent (2 Kgs 22:19), faint (Job 23:16), fearful (Isa 35:4),
or broken (Ps 69:20). The righteous walk in truth, revere God with an undivided
heart, and give thanks with their whole heart (Ps 86:11–12; 101:2).
Purity of heart was deemed to be essential for ritual washings to be effec-
tive, both by the Pharisees and by the Essenes. Without inward purity, ritual
washings were of no avail (1QH 3.4–5, 8–9; 5.13–14; 11.2). Similarly, Jas 4:8,
a synonymous couplet in which the second line is a variation on the first, says,
“Cleanse your hands, you sinners, and purify your hearts, you double-minded”
(cf. 2 Tim 2:22). That is, both one’s actions and one’s thoughts and will should
be pure.
Donald A. Hagner observes that this beatitude anticipates the internalizing
of the commandments that follows in the Sermon on the Mount: “It takes for
granted right actions but asks for integrity in the doing of those actions.”51 Such
integrity requires consistency of spirit and action as well as wholehearted con-
viction. Another corollary of the consistency between one’s heart and one’s
action is that one’s actions reveal the inclination of one’s heart: “what comes
out of the mouth proceeds from the heart, and this is what defiles. For out of
the heart come evil intentions, murder, adultery, fornication, theft, false witness,
slander. These are what defile a person” (Matt 15:18–20; cf. 12:34). The good
person produces good fruit out of the treasure of the heart (Matt 7:16–20).
But how does one cleanse one’s heart? Matthew does not say how one might
attain purity of heart, but the context suggests by internalizing the commands
and following them in one’s behavior toward others, as illustrated by the trans-
formative initiatives in 5:21–48. In the interpretation of the parable of the sower,
Matthew adds a key phrase; the seed is sown “in the heart” (13:19). Those who
are hard of heart (“rocky ground”; cf. 15:8) or whose minds are turned toward
“the cares of the world and the lure of wealth” yield nothing, while those who
hear the word and understand it bear a hundred, sixty, or thirtyfold (13:20–23).
Birger Gerhardsson aptly commented that Matthew used the parable of the
sower as “a key to the entire tradition of Jesus.”52 Accordingly, for Matthew, “the
great divide among the people of God separates those whose hearts are hardened
50 See A. L. Mittleman, A Short History of Jewish Ethics (Chichester: Wiley Blackwell, 2012),
29–32, 132–33.
51 D. A. Hagner, Matthew, 2 vols., WBC 33A–B (Dallas: Word, 1993, 1995), 1:94.
52 Gerhardsson, Ethos of the Bible, 36.
on the one hand from those who ‘understand’ and, as a result, pattern their lives
according the heavenly proclamation.”53
This brief exploration of the warrant of scripture as one of the foundations of
Matthean ethics has established that for Matthew the law and prophets continue
to be binding. Jesus fulfills the scriptures in his person, work, and teaching.
In his hermeneutical program, obedience requires wholehearted love of God
that is expressed in love for one’s neighbor, the golden rule, and prioritizing
the obligations of love, mercy, righteousness, and forgiveness. Moreover, Mat-
thew’s ethical vision is established polemically in Jesus’s sharp exchanges with
the Pharisees.
C. Eschatology: Reward and Punishment
The Matthean Jesus’s promise of rewards for the righteous and punishment for
the wicked inextricably links ethics and eschatology. As these categories already
imply, both ethics and eschatology reflect an underlying dualism. As at earlier
points, a brief detour into the Qumran scrolls is instructive for comparative
purposes and as a way of showing how Matthew works with concepts and as-
sumptions that are at home in Second Temple Judaism.
In an often-cited essay on dualism in 1QS and John, James H. Charlesworth
defined various types of dualism and their expression in the scrolls, focusing
especially on 1QS 3.13–4.26. Here he found three types of dualism, which as
we will see are also assumed in Matthew: (1) cosmic dualism (“two opposing
celestial spirits or two distinct and present divisions of the universe”); ethical
dualism (“the bifurcation of mankind into two mutually exclusive groups ac-
cording to virtues and vices”); and (3) eschatological dualism (“the rigid di-
vision of time between the present aeon and the future one”).54 His conclusion
is that 1QS “presents a modified cosmic dualism, under which is a subordinate
ethical dualism, … whose most conspicuous characteristic is the light-darkness
paradigm, and most pervasive feature is the eschatological dimension.”55
In 1QS these various dualistic categories are evident in the perception of the
Qumran sect that they were living in the last days, which were characterized by
the conflict “between two warring spirits who are locked in a titanic warfare.”56
The instructor at Qumran explains that “[u]ntil now the spirits of truth and of
injustice feud in the heart of man and they walk in wisdom or in folly” (1QS
53 Gerhardsson, Ethos of the Bible, 38.

54 J. H. Charlesworth, “A Critical Comparison of the Dualism in 1QS 3:13–4:26 and the
‘Dualism’ Contained in the Gospel of John,” in John and Qumran, ed. idem (London: Chap-
man, 1972), 76–106, here 76 n. 1.
55 Charlesworth, “Critical Comparison,” 89.
56 Charlesworth, “Critical Comparison,” 82.
4.23–24).57 Accordingly, humanity is divided between the sons/children of light

and the sons/children of darkness (1QS 1.9–10), until “the last day” (1QS 4.17),
when God will obliterate injustice forever (1QS 4.19). For the sons of truth,
who are “selected by God for an everlasting covenant” (1QS 4.22), there will
be “healing, plentiful peace in a long life, fruitful offspring with all everlasting
blessings, eternal enjoyment with endless life, and a crown of glory with majes-
tic raiment in eternal life” (1QS 4.6–8). For those who walk in the paths of
darkness, however, there will be “a glut of punishments at the hands of all the
angels of destruction, for eternal damnation for the scorching wrath of the God
of revenge, for permanent error and shame without end with the humiliation of
destruction by the fire of the dark regions” (1QS 4.12–13).
Matthew shares this worldview to a remarkable degree, although without its
determinism or its explanation of the two inclinations allotted to humankind.
The occurrence of some of the same vocabulary in Matthew, while it does not
indicate literary dependence or direct influence from the Qumran sect, does
show that Matthew, like John, was at home in dualistic, apocalyptic, sectarian
Judaism. This world is populated by demons58 and unclean spirits (Matt 8:16;
10:1; 12:43, 45). There is an “eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels”
(25:41). The wicked will be banished to Hades (11:23; 16:18), Gehenna (5:22,
29–30; 10:28; 18:9; 23:15, 33), a “furnace of fire” (13:42, 50),59 “eternal pun-
ishment” (25:46), and the outer darkness (8:12; 22:13; 25:30), where there will
be “weeping and gnashing of teeth” (8:12; 13:42, 50; 22:13; 24:51; 25:30).60
This apocalyptic language paints a grim, terrifying picture, which we may
surmise is intended as a powerful disincentive against certain groups, behavior,
false teachings, or ethical violations. Against whom or what sorts of conduct
does Matthew level this language? Jesus’s primary opponents in Matthew are
the Pharisees. In Matthew the Pharisees are named as a group and in connection
with other groups of leaders (scribes, Sadducees, and chief priests), but never
more than one other group at a time, and no individual Pharisee appears in the
Gospel.61 While Jesus encounters Pharisees in Galilee, at one point “Pharisees
and scribes came to Jesus from Jerusalem” (15:1) and challenged him for not
observing “the traditions of the elders.” They were scandalized by his response
(15:12). In other scenes, the Pharisees challenge Jesus for eating with tax collec-
tors and sinners (9:11), the disciples of John the Baptist ask why they and the
Pharisees fast but Jesus’s disciples do not (9:14). The Pharisees charge that Jesus
57 Trans. (here and below) García Martínez, Dead Sea Scrolls Translated, 6–7.
58 Occurrences of δαιμόνια in Matthew: 7:22; 9:33, 34; 10:8; 11:18; 12:24, 27, 28; 17:18 and
seven occurrences of the participle, δαιμονιζόμενος.
59 Other references to fire in Matthew: 3:10–12; 5:22; 7:19; 13:40; 18:8–9; 25:41.
60 See J. Clark-Soles, Death and the Afterlife in the New Testament (New York: T&T Clark,
2006), 183–86.
61 Pharisees alone (12 ×), “Pharisees and Sadducees” (5 ×), “scribes and Pharisees” (9 ×),
and “Pharisees and scribes” (once, 15:1), “chief priests and Pharisees” (twice, 21:45; 27:62).
casts out demons by the prince of demons (9:34; 12:24), they accuse Jesus of
letting his disciples violate the sabbath (12:2), and after Jesus heals on the sab-
bath, they plot to destroy him (12:14). They test Jesus in matters of the law (19:3;
22:15, 34, 41) and challenge him to give them a sign (12:38).
After repeated scenes of challenge and conflict, Jesus levels three charges
against them in Matthew 23, but legalism is not one of them.62 The first charge
is hypocrisy: “They do all their deeds to be seen by others” (23:5; cf. 6:1–6,
16–18). When the scribes are associated with the Pharisees, they are condemned
also. The refrain, “Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites!” is repeated
six times (23:13, 15, 23, 25, 27, 29). They cleanse the outside but not the inside
(23:25–26); they are like whitewashed tombs (23:27). Second, the Pharisees
prevent others from entering the kingdom of heaven (23:13). They lay heavy
burdens on the shoulders of others (23:4). They make converts who are “twice
as much a child of hell as yourselves” (23:15). They are “blind guides” (23:16).
Third, they neglect “the weightier matters of the law: justice and mercy and
faith” (23:23). As a result, the basic problem is that Israel’s leaders, the Pharisees
and their scribes and the chief priests (21:33–46, esp. 21:45) who led the people
of Israel, had fallen into lawlessness (ἀνομία, 7:23; 13:41; 23:28; 24:12).63 The
problem is not legalism but lawlessness. Jesus explains: “on the outside,” the
Pharisees “look righteous to others, but inside you are full of hypocrisy and law-
lessness” (23:28); and “because of the increase of lawlessness, the love of many
will grow cold” (24:12). “Love” here is specific. Following Jesus’s words about
the “first commandment” and “the second” like it (22:34–40), the reference to
love growing cold points to Israel’s failure to observe the essence of the Torah. In
response, Jesus condemns the Pharisees: upon them will come “all the righteous
blood shed on earth” (23:35).
Jesus also condemns “this evil (and adulterous) generation” (12:39, 45; 16:4;
cf. 12:42; 23:36), and Chorazin, Bethsaida, and Capernaum, “in which most of
his deeds of power had been done,” because they did not repent (11:20–24).
He condemns specific offenses: anger toward a brother/sister (5:22), lust (5:27–
30), and causing “one of these little ones” to stumble (18:6–7). Those who say
“Lord, Lord” but do not do the will of the Father in heaven are evildoers (7:21–
23). Likewise, the wicked slave who says “My master is delayed” and beats his
fellow slaves (24:45–51; cf. 25:30) will be put “with the hypocrites” (24:51),
and Gentiles who do not show compassion to “the least of these my broth-
ers/sisters” (25:40, 45) will be sent “into the eternal fire/eternal punishment”
(25:41, 46).
The problem is that even the community is a corpus mixtum with false pro-
phets, wolves in sheep’s clothing (7:15), wheat and tares (13:36–43), clean and
62 See above, nn. 31 and 32.

63 Runesson, Divine Wrath and Salvation, 11, 167, 217–31.
unclean fish (13:47–48), good and bad (cf. 22:10). The two will not be separated
until the judgment, which is likened to a king or master settling accounts (18:23;
25:19). Angels will collect the evildoers (13:39, 41) and the elect (24:31) and sort
the evil from the righteous (13:49). At “the end of the age” the Son of man will
come (24:3, 27, 37, 39, 44) “with his angels” (16:27; 25:31) and sit on his throne
in glory (25:31).
The bases on which each will be judged are scattered in various logia. On the
day of judgment, “you will have to give an account for every careless word you
utter” (12:36). “For with the judgment you make you will be judged, and the
measure you give will be the measure you get” (7:2). “He will repay everyone
for what has been done” (16:27). Even “the heirs of the kingdom” will be cast
in outer darkness (8:12), if they do not respond to the call to the kingdom. The
man without a robe (works of Torah) will be thrown out of the wedding banquet
(21:11–13). The people of Nineveh who repented at the preaching of Jonah, and
the queen of the South, who came to see Solomon, “will rise up at the judgment
with this generation and condemn it” (12:41–42). Fulfilling Isa 42:1, the Son
of Man will also “proclaim justice to the Gentiles” (Matt 12:18, 20) and judge
the sheep and the goats (25:31–46) on the basis of whether they have shown
compassion on his followers or not.
The righteous, those praised by the beatitudes as blessed, who are persecuted
for righteousness’s sake (5:10–12), whose righteousness exceeds that of even the
scribes and Pharisees (5:20), love their enemies and pray for their persecutors
(5:44–45). They give alms, pray, and fast in secret (6:1–18), forgive others (6:14),
and store up treasure in heaven (6:19–21). They are like:
– a tree that bears good fruit, “fruit of repentance” (3:8, 10; 7:17–19; 12:33;
13:23);
– the son that actually went to his father’s vineyard (21:28–31);
– the bridesmaids who had oil for their lamps (25:1–13);
– the slaves who invested their master’s talents (25:14–30).
They will have not just good deeds but works of obedience commanded by the
Torah (5:17–20; 19:17; 23:23). For their obedience, the righteous will inherit
the earth (5:5), eternal life (19:29), and the kingdom (25:34) and receive the
reward of their master’s blessing (24:46; 25:21, 23). They will “shine like the
sun” (13:43).
Anders Runesson discerns in the Gospel of Matthew three types of judgment:
“a) Punishment and reward as distributed in this world; b) Punishment and
reward to be paid in the world to come; c) the final judgment.”64 The kingdom
and eternal life are inherited:65
64 Runesson, Divine Wrath and Salvation, 44.

65 Runesson, Divine Wrath and Salvation, 171, “while condemnation is based on a person’s
‘works,’ salvation can never be earned, only ‘inherited.’”
– “Blessed are the meek, for they will inherit the earth” (5:5);
– “And everyone who has left houses or brothers or sisters or father or mother
or children or fields, for my name’s sake, will receive a hundredfold, and will
inherit eternal life” (19:29);
– “Then the king will say to those at his right hand, ‘Come, you that are blessed
by my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of
the world’” (25:34).
As we have seen, most of the Matthean judgment texts refer to the final judg-
ment, where the outcome is either salvation or condemnation. Matthew
generally views divine reward (μισθός) and punishment as being meted out
in the world to come. The natural corollary of judgment based on what one
does or does not do is the notion of a graduated scale of rewards and pun-
ishments. Some will be more highly rewarded than others (11:11; 16:27; 20:21,
23). Among those who will be highly rewarded are those who are reviled and
persecuted on Jesus’s account (5:12), those who do and teach the least of the
commandments (5:19), those who practice their piety without regard for pub-
lic acclaim (6:1–6, 16–18, 20), those who welcome and give even a cup of cold
water to an itinerant prophet (10:40–42), those who become humble like a child
(18:4; cf. 19:30; 20:1–16; 23:12), and those who sell their possessions and give
to the poor (19:21).66
Nevertheless, there are consequences for the righteous and the wicked in this
world also: those who seek first the kingdom of God and its/his righteousness
will not have to worry about sustenance or clothing (6:33), blasphemy against
the Holy Spirit will not be forgiven in this age or in the age to come (12:32),
and those who take the sword will perish by the sword (26:52). Sodom and
Gomorrah were destroyed because of their wickedness (11:23). The same will
happen to Jerusalem (21:18–19; 22:7; 24:2, 15–28), in “this generation” (23:36);
their house will be left desolate (23:37), and “the vineyard” will be leased to
other tenants (21:41).67
After this overview of judgment, reward, and punishment in Matthew, the
interpreter may well wonder, what role then does faith (or, faithfulness) play
and what is Jesus’s role in salvation? In the Gospel of Matthew faith ranks
among the weightier matters of the law with justice and mercy (23:23). Faith
elicits healing (9:22, 29), miracle working, and answered prayer (21:21–22).
While it is possible that Jesus’s assurance to the woman with a hemorrhage,
“your faith has made you well” (ἡ πίστις σου σέσωκέν σε, 9:22), implies the full
theological sense of saved, Jesus does not speak of salvation by faith elsewhere
in Matthew. When the disciples protest, “who then can be saved?” Jesus answers
that with humankind it is impossible – that is, neither works of obedience nor
66 Runesson, Divine Wrath and Salvation, 50–51.

67 Runesson, Divine Wrath and Salvation, 49–50.
faith insures salvation – but “with God all things are possible” (19:25–26),
and God is a God of mercy (5:7; 18:33; 24:22). Similarly, the Matthean Jesus
rebukes the disciples five times for their “little faith” (ὀλιγοπιστία). Because of
their “little faith”: (1) they do not trust that God will clothe them (since God
clothes the grass of the field; 6:30); (2) they are afraid in the storm (8:26), (3)
Peter begins to sink when he becomes frightened (14:31); (4) the disciples are
concerned that they forgot to bring bread when the crossed the lake (16:8); and
(5) the disciples were not able to cast the demon out of the epileptic boy (17:20).
In each case, again, faith is not related to salvation but to trust in God’s care and
protection, and to the ability to overcome adversity and the demons.
Jesus is given his name because “he will save his people from their sins”
(1:21). As we have seen, Jesus saves his people, Israel, by calling them to repent
and observe Torah.68 In four “I have come” (ἦλθον) statements, Jesus declares
that he has come (1) to fulfill the law and the prophets (5:17); (2) to call not the
righteous but sinners (9:13); (3) to bring not peace but a sword (10:34); and
(4) to set a man against his father and a daughter against her mother (10:35;
Mic 7:6). All things have been given over to him (11:27; 28:18), and he will
reveal the Father to whomever he chooses and give rest to those who take his
yoke and learn from him (11:27–29). He will give his life as a ransom for many
(20:28): “this is my blood of the covenant, which is poured out for many for the
forgiveness of sins” (26:28). Note that the stronger reading omits “new” before
“covenant” (cf. Luke 22:20).69 Jesus’s death is therefore also salvific,70 although
Matthew refers to salvation through Jesus’s death far less frequently than Jesus’s
call to Torah observance.71 At Jesus’s death, the chief priests mock him, saying,
“He saved others; he cannot save himself ” (27:42). The rending of the veil in
the temple should probably be taken as an omen of its destruction, and the
resurrection of the dead proleptically links the resurrection at the end of days
to Jesus’s death (27:51–53). Then the Son of Man will come in his kingdom
(16:28), gather his elect (24:31), repay each one according to his or her deeds
(τὴν πρᾶξιν αὐτοῦ, 16:27), and judge the nations (25:32).
This brief foray into Matthew’s eschatology shows that Matthew shares many
of the precepts of apocalyptic, sectarian Judaism. Covenant obedience is closely
related to a dualistic worldview and the consequent rewards and punishments for
the righteous and the wicked. Like the Qumran sectarians, the Mattheans were
bitterly opposed to the Pharisees, whom they charged with leading the people
68 Cf. Blanton, “Saved by Obedience,” 393–413.

69 NA28: 𝔓37, 45vid ‫ א‬B L Z Θ 0298vid 33.
70 Runesson, Divine Wrath and Salvation, 191–92, suggests that Matthew interprets Jesus’s
sacrificial death as providing the means for forgiveness of sin after the destruction of the temple
and the cessation of its sacrifices.
71 Cf. Blanton, “Saved by Obedience,” 412.
of Israel astray. At the last judgment, the wicked will be banished to eternal pun-
ishment, while the righteous will be rewarded according to their works.
D. Conclusion
Following the lead of Jan van der Watt’s work, we focused especially on “how the
‘why’ and ‘what’ are structurally and logically interrelated.”72 The interrelation-
ship of three foundational warrants for righteous behavior (Christology, scrip-
ture, and eschatology) provides the foundation for Matthean ethics; i. e., they
form the structural pillars of the grammar that underlies its ethical dynamics.
These warrants also stand in a particular relation to one another, with Chris-
tology as the center. The second is the enduring authority of scripture. Jesus,
the Messiah of Israel, sets forth teachings on righteousness and hermeneutical
guidelines for the interpretation of the law and the prophets that develop the cen-
trality of the love of God and neighbor, mercy, and forgiveness. These warrants,
the “why” of Matthean ethics, are effective because believers are drawn in this
dynamic by their association with Jesus (faith, following) and are thus bound
to this system based on their submission and obedience to Jesus as their Mes-
siah and Lord. Matthean (or more generally biblical) ethics therefore require the
faithfulness and participation of the community of faith.73
The pervasive effect of the formulation of the Jesus tradition in Matthew in
terms of the Matthew’s interpretation of the scriptures of Israel has no coun-
terpart in Greco-Roman biographies. The third warrant is eschatological; the
wicked will suffer eternal punishment while the righteous will be rewarded
for their obedience with varying degrees of rewards in the kingdom of heaven.
Again, there is nothing like Matthew 24, with its prophetic and apocalyptic an-
nouncement of judgment, in Greco-Roman biographies.
Our search for the foundations of Matthean ethics has confirmed Burridge’s
observation that Matthew’s ethical teachings and the conceptual foundations
for those teachings are developed not only in the Sermon on the Mount but in
the deeds and teachings of Jesus throughout the Gospel. On the other hand, the
Matthean Jesus and his teachings belong to the thought world of Second Temple
Judaism. Ancient readers may well have recognized Matthew as a biography
because it focuses on one larger than life figure, his birth, career, teachings, and
death, but its world is Jewish, not Greco-Roman.
Our investigation of Matthean ethics returns to the observation, certainly not
original,74 of how comparable Matthew is to other Jewish literature of the period,
72 Van der Watt, Grammar of the Ethics of John; cf. n. 1 above.
73 I am grateful to Jan van der Watt for this observation.
74 See esp. the works by Blanton, Overman, Repschinski, Runesson, Sim, and Stanton cited
above.
especially the sectarian literature from Qumran. Like the sectarians, Matthew
perceives the problem as the corruption of the leadership in Jerusalem. The
Pharisees, along with the scribes aligned with them and the chief priests, led
the people of Israel into lawlessness, with the result that Jerusalem will be/has
been destroyed. Foreseeing this judgment, the Matthean Jesus calls the covenant
people to repentance and a greater righteousness based on the “weightier
matters” of the law, and he lays down his life as an atonement for the righteous
who bear the “fruits of repentance.” To such as these belongs the kingdom of
heaven.
Continuity and Discontinuity
in Luke’s Gospel
Luke 9:51 and the Pre-Jerusalem Phase
as a Test Case
Wolfgang Grünstäudl
In a contribution to Jesper Tang Nielsen’s and Mogens Müller’s inspiring

volume Luke’s Literary Creativity from 2016, Joseph M. Lear, Jr. focuses on the
composition of Luke 9–10 and argues that “[t]he sequence of pericopae [sc.
Luke 9:28–10:42] is bound together primarily by Luke’s desire to identify Jesus
as the prophet like Moses foretold in Deut 18.15–18.”1 This proposal is one in a
long series of scholarly attempts to clarify the structure of Luke’s gospel, espe-
cially its “central section”2 or “travel narrative,” by studying possible intertextual
links to OT concepts3 like the Exodus stories4 or the Elijah-Elisha-narratives.5
Already back in 1955, Christopher F. Evans labelled Luke’s “central section” “a
Christian Deuteronomy.”6
1 J. M. Lear, Jr., “Luke’s Use of the Old Testament in the Sending of the Seventy(-Two):
A Compositional Study,” in Luke’s Literary Creativity, ed. J. T. Nielsen and M. Müller, LNTS 550
(London: Bloomsbury T&T Clark, 2016), 160–82, 162.
2 A. Denaux (“The Delineation of the Lukan Travel Narrative within the Overall Struc-
ture of the Gospel of Luke,” in idem, Studies in the Gospel of Luke: Structure, Language and
Theology, Tilberg Theological Studies 4 [Berlin: LIT, 2010], 3–37, 7) notes that “[a]lthough the
term ‘central section’ sounds more neutral from a source-critical point of view (defenders of the
Proto-Luke theory also use it), it also implies a choice as to the structure of Luke.”
3 Cf. Lear, “Luke’s Use of the Old Testament,” 161 n. 4. For a very helpful overview, cf.
A. Denaux, “Old Testament Models for the Lukan Travel Narrative: A Critical Survey,” in The
Scriptures in the Gospels, ed. C. M. Tuckett, BETL 131 (Leuven: Leuven University Press, 1997),
271–305.
4 K. Schiffner (Lukas liest Exodus: Eine Untersuchung zur Aufnahme ersttestamentlicher
Befreiungsgeschichte im lukanischen Werk als Schrift-Lektüre, BWANT 172 [Kohlhammer:
Stuttgart, 2008], 15) reads the whole of Luke-Acts in the light of Exodus: “Damit eröffnet sich
eine neue Perspektive für Lukasevangelium und Apostelgeschichte: Sie lassen sich lesen als
Gesamtentwurf einer ‘Exoduslektüre unter messianischen Vorzeichen’ … Diese Prägung geht so
weit, dass es sogar möglich wird, versuchsweise einen Gesamtaufbau von Lk-Apg nachzuzeich-
nen, der sich an der Handlungsfolge Exodus 1 bis Josua 24 orientiert.”
5 Cf., e. g., the contributions in The Elijah-Elisha Narrative in the Composition of Luke, ed.
J. S. Kloppenborg and J. Verheyden, LNTS 493 (London: Bloomsbury T&T Clark, 2014), which
engage especially with the groundbreaking work of Thomas L. Brodie.
6 C. F. Evans, “The Central Section of Luke’s Gospel,” in Studies in the Gospels: Essays in
382 Wolfgang Grünstäudl
Lear, however, offers little reflection upon his own reading of Luke 9–10
in the light of this scholarly tradition in general or the most relevant contri-
butions of David P. Moessner in particular.7 Similarly, his firm judgment that
“Luke 9.28–10.42 is a literary unit”8 is not discussed against the widespread
scholarly consensus which understands Luke 9:51 as “major turning point”9
in Luke’s narrative and perceives it as a deep caesura within Luke’s structure.
Lear’s article, surely to be appreciated for its close reading of Luke 9:28–10:42,10
thus perfectly demonstrates the need for further investigations regarding the
composition of Luke 9–10, as indicated by Michael Wolter: “The structure and
function of chapter 9 present many problems for interpreters of Luke. This is
recognizable in the great number of very different structuring proposals … and
in the great number of articles with the term ‘composition’ (or the like) in the
title.”11 Insofar as Luke 9–10 contains no less than three major riddles related to
the search for Luke’s compositional agenda, Wolter’s diagnosis does not come
as a surprise. Those three challenges are: (1) the absence of a significant part
of Mark’s material between Luke 9:17 and 9:18 (on the assumption of Markan
priority commonly called the “great omission”); (2) the structural importance of
Memory of Robert Henry Lightfoot, ed. D. E. Nineham (Oxford: Blackwell, 1955), 37–53, 42 (cf.
the extensive synopsis of parallels between Deuteronomy and Luke at ibid., 42–50).
7 Cf. D. P. Moessner, The Lord of the Banquet: The Literary and Theological Significance of
the Lukan Travel Narrative (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 1989). Cf. now the collection of essays
by idem, Luke the Historian of Israel’s Legacy, Theologian of Israel’s “Christ”: A New Reading
of the “Gospel Acts” of Luke, BZNW 182 (Berlin: De Gruyter, 2016). Lear (“Luke’s Use of the
Old Testament,” 161 n. 4) remarks that Moessner “argues, like I do, that Luke wants to portray
Jesus as the prophet like Moses of Deut 18.15 …” (cf. ibid., 166 n. 15, which is the only further
reference to Moessner).
8 Lear, “Luke’s Use of the Old Testament,” 161 n. 6: “Luke 9.28–10.42 is a literary unit, but it
is still obviously related to its surrounding material, and especially with what precedes it.” For a
comparable position in older literature, cf. D. A. S. Ravens, “Luke 9.7–62 and the Prophetic Role
of Jesus,” NTS 36 (1990): 119–29, who understands Luke 9:1–10:17 as a unit.
9 F. J. Matera, “Jesus’ Journey to Jerusalem (Luke 9.51–19.46): A Conflict with Israel,” JSNT
51 (1993), 57–77, 58. For numerous closely similar descriptions, cf. R. von Bendemann, Zwisch-
en ΔΟΞΑ und ΣΤΑΥΡΟΣ: Eine exegetische Untersuchung der Texte des sogenannten Reiseberichts
im Lukasevangelium, BZNW 101 (Berlin: De Gruyter, 2001), 80–81.
10 Regarding the other synoptic gospels, Lear (“Luke’s Use of the Old Testament,” 182)
writes: “While it is apparent that Luke is using the OT self-consciously, it is unclear how much
of Luke’s reuse of Scripture is taken over from his sources. Luke may have taken some cues
from other Gospel writers. God’s words on the mount of transfiguration (ἀκούετε αὐτοῦ), for
example, also appear in Matthew’s and Mark’s version of the scene (Matt 17.1–8; Mark 9.2–8).
Luke is the only one that speaks of an ἔξοδος Jesus is about to accomplish, but that does not
mean Matthew and Mark are not also connecting Jesus’ transfiguration with other Mosaic
traditions. Further study of both Matthew and Mark would be needed to see if Matthew and/
or Mark are also reusing Deut 18.15 and other OT Scriptures for their particular purposes and
if Luke is taking over one or both Gospel writer’s use of Scripture into his own narrative in an
analogous, though not identical, way.”
11 M. Wolter, The Gospel according to Luke, trans. W. Coppins and C. Heilig, 2 vols.,
BMSSEC (Waco, TX: Baylor University Press, 2016, 2017), 1:365. To be precise, this remark is
formulated regarding (only) Luke 9:1–50.
Continuity and Discontinuity in Luke’s Gospel 383
Luke 9:51, widely recognized as the beginning of Luke’s “travel narrative”/“cen-

tral section” which has been hotly debated regarding its limits, structure, and
purpose for more than two hundred years; and (3) the unique narration of not
one, but two sendings of disciples in Luke 9:1–6 and Luke 10:1–17 (contrast
Mark and Matthew).
Although the amount of research literature on Luke 9 and 10 is immense (as
it is on Luke in general), it seems fair to state that these three interpretative chal-
lenges have been treated quite differently by interpreters of Luke. The emergence
of Luke’s “great omission” might not be easily explained – nevertheless most
present readers of Luke seem to be well acquainted with the lack of a universally
accepted explanation. Similarly, Luke 9:51 is regarded as a major turning point
in Luke’s story of Jesus by the vast majority of scholars, although Lukan scholar-
ship is far from any consensus regarding the exact extent, the intention, and even
the appropriate name of the section of the third gospel allegedly opened by this
very verse.
Things are a bit different in respect to the sendings narrated in Luke 9:1–6
and 10:1–16. Bearing a remarkable amount of similarities and differences, these
two mission discourses play a very prominent role in source-critical discussions
on the Synoptic Problem as well as in scholarship on the sayings gospel Q and
its place within the development of earliest Christianity. From the perspective of
the Two-Source Hypothesis, much has been written on the reconstruction of Q’s
sending of the disciples (allegedly forming the source for much of Luke 10:2–
16)12 and its probable relationship to the sending of the Twelve in Mark 6:7–13.13
More recently, Mark Goodacre pointed to Luke 9:4–5 as an example of “editorial
fatigue” that should be explained by Luke’s use of Matthew (alongside Mark) and
that could thus form an argument in favor of the Farrer Hypothesis.14 Compared
to this popularity of the Lukan mission discourses in source-critical perspective,
usually rather little weight is given to this double sending in respect to structure,
narrative purpose, and theological message of the third gospel.
12 Cf., e. g., C. Heil, “Die Missionsinstruktion in Q 10,2–16: Transformationen der Jesus-

überlieferung im Spruchevangelium Q,” in Aneignung durch Transformation: Beiträge zur
Analyse von Überlieferungsprozessen im frühen Christentum; Festschrift für Michael Theobald,
ed. W. Eisele, C. Schaefer, and H.‑U. Weidemann, Herders biblische Studien 74 (Freiburg im
Breisgau: Herder, 2013), 25–55; and D. T. Roth, “Missionary Ethics in Q 10:2–12,” in Sensitivity
to Outsiders: Exploring the Dynamic Relationship between Mission and Ethics in the New Tes-
tament and Early Christianity, ed. C. M. Hays, J. Kok, T. Nicklas, and D. T. Roth, WUNT 2/364
(Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2014), 81–100.
13 Cf., e. g., H. T. Fleddermann, “The Doublets in Luke,” ETL 84 (2008): 409–44, 423–26.
14 Cf. M. Goodacre, “Taking Our Leave of Mark-Q Overlaps: Major Agreements and the
Farrer Theory,” in Gospel Interpretation and the Q‑Hypothesis, ed. M. Müller and H. Omerzu,
LNTS 573 (London: Bloomsbury T&T Clark, 2018), 201–22, 218–19. For a counter-argument,
cf. now T. Hägerland, “Editorial Fatigue and the Existence of Q,” NTS 65 (2019): 190–206,
200–2.
Against this background, the present paper aims to contribute to the discus-
sion of Luke’s compositional structure in chapters 9 and 10 by applying a twofold
approach: First, a closer look is taken at Reinhard von Bendemann’s vigorous
argument against the identification of Luke 9:51 as a caesura in Luke’s narrative
and, indeed, against the very existence of a Lukan “travel narrative” at all. It
will be argued that despite its shortcomings, von Bendemann’s insightful pro-
posal merits serious consideration for any judgment regarding continuity and
discontinuity in Luke 9–10. In its second part, the paper focuses on the doublets
in Luke 9 and 10. After some general remarks on doublets and a plea for a new
terminology as well as for a new way of systematizing doublets, the connecting
function of the doublets in Luke 9 and 10 is described. This may lead to a more
balanced appreciation of elements of continuity and discontinuity within the
composition of Luke 9–10.
A. Archimedean Point or Achilles’s Heel?

Von Bendemann on Luke 9:51 and the Concept
of a Travel Narrative
As mentioned above, Lear’s recent description of Luke 9:28–10:42 as “a literary

unit”15 stands in opposition to one of the most widely accepted judgments on the
structure of Luke’s gospel, namely the identification of Luke 9:51 as the starting
point of Luke’s “travel narrative.”16 Due to this firm consensus,17 almost all multi-
volume commentaries on Luke conclude their first volume with Luke 9:50, with
the commentaries of Joseph Fitzmyer (ending at Luke 9:62) and John Nolland
(ending at Luke 9:20) being exceptions proving the rule.18 Both Fitzmyer and
Nolland, however, explicitly regard Luke 9:51 as a more important caesura
than Luke 10:1 or Luke 9:21. In order to evaluate the possibility of a “continuity
reading” (such as proposed by Lear), it might be helpful to take a look at the
most vigorous attack brought forward against the classical view of Luke 9:51 as a
“major turning point” within Luke’s narrative.
15 Lear, “Luke’s Use of the Old Testament,” 161 n. 6: “Luke 9.28–10.42 is a literary unit, but
it is still obviously related to its surrounding material, and especially with what precedes it.” For
a comparable position in older literature, cf. Ravens, “Luke 9.7–62 and the Prophetic Role of
Jesus,” who understands Luke 9:1–10:17 as a unit.
16 For the most important arguments for this interpretation, cf., e. g., von Bendemann,
Zwischen ΔΟΞΑ und ΣΤΑΥΡΟΣ, 81.
17 Von Bendemann (Zwischen ΔΟΞΑ und ΣΤΑΥΡΟΣ, 82 with n. 65) lists “die wenigen
Stimmen derjenigen Exegeten, die der Annahme einer mit Lk 9,51 eröffneten und bis zum 18.
oder 19. Kapitel reichenden ‘Sektion’ in verschiedener Hinsicht widersprochen haben.”
18 Cf. J. A. Fitzmyer, The Gospel according to Luke: Introduction, Translation and Notes, 2
vols., AB 28, 28A (New York: Doubleday, 1981, 1985); J. Nolland, Luke, 3 vols., WBC 35A–C
(Waco, TX: Word Books, 1989–1993).
The title of Reinhard von Bendemann’s habilitation from 2001 leaves little
doubt about the study’s aim. Supervised by Michael Wolter and published in one
of the flagship series of the field, Zwischen ΔΟΞΑ und ΣΤΑΥΡΟΣ: Eine exegetische
Untersuchung der Texte des sogenannten Reiseberichts im Lukasevangelium,19
intends no less then a full-blown critique of the “so-called” travel narrative. Ac-
cording to von Bendemann, the travel narrative was not crafted by Luke but
rather by his readers (i. e., modern exegetes) and its appreciation does not foster
but hinders a deeper understanding of Luke’s gospel.
Quite surprisingly, von Bendemann’s bold thesis received rather little
attention. One of the most useful resources in Lukan studies, François Bovon’s
famous account of research, even articulates a thoroughly negative judgment:
The results are important, but if German scholars still desire international discussion
their monographs need to be shorter and written in a more accessible style. I am not
sure I understand all of von Bendemann’s arguments. But I do understand one point: in
my view Luke 9:51 constitutes really a new beginning, and it speaks explicitly of travel to
Jerusalem.20
While Bovon’s statement is to be welcomed by German-speaking NT scholars as

an encouragement to critically reflect upon the readability of their publications,
it should not discourage anyone from a close – and maybe at times arduous –
reading of von Bendemann’s insightful study. For our purpose, a short and
sketchy overview of von Bendemann’s three main arguments may suffice.21
(1) After a short description of useful criteria to identify larger sections in
ancient literature, von Bendemann presents a well-researched overview of all
the different proposals for the very end of Luke’s travel narrative:22 Since the
days of Friedrich Schleiermacher, who is most often credited with the invention
of the concept of a Lukan travel narrative,23 numerous verses in Luke’s gospel
(e. g., 18:30–31, 34; 19:10, 27, 28, 40, 41, 44, 46, 48) and even in Acts have been
identified as the fitting end to a major section starting in Luke 9:51.24 Von Bende
mann’s conclusion is simple: if even after decades of NT research a consensus on
19 See n. 9 above.

20 F. Bovon, Luke the Theologian: Fifty-Five Years of Research (1950–2005), 2nd ed. (Waco,
TX: Baylor University Press, 2006), 517.
21 A critical but very fair summary of von Bendemann’s arguments in English can be
found in F. Noël, The Travel Narrative in the Gospel of Luke: Interpretation of Lk 9,51–19,28,
Collectanea biblica et religiosa antiqua 5 (Brussels: Koninklijke Vlaamse Academie van België
vor Wetenschappen en Kunsten, 2004), 186–202.
22 Cf. von Bendemann, Zwischen ΔΟΞΑ und ΣΤΑΥΡΟΣ, 65–70 (“Das ungelöste Problem des
Endes eines mit Lk 9,51 eröffneten ‘Reiseberichts’”).
23 For the earliest usages of the term “travel narrative” cf. Denaux, “Delineation,” 11–12.
24 Cf. Noël, Travel Narrative, passim; Wolter, Gospel according to Luke, 2:41: “This variety
is based on the fact that there is no note of arrival that corresponds to the note of departure in
9.51.”
the exact extent of Luke’s travel narrative appears impossible to reach, one might
wonder if the guild is searching for something that does not exist at all.25
(2) Similar problems occur if one asks for the inner structure of the travel
narrative. Von Bendemann demonstrates that all attempts to subdivide a travel
section beginning in Luke 9:51 (with whatever final point) have achieved in-
conclusive results at best.26 Neither focusing on the redactional Reisenotizen
(esp. 9:51, 13:22, 17:11)27 nor unraveling a more or less complex chiastic
structure helps to avoid the impression that the travel narrative constitutes for
its biggest part of a travel without progress.28 Thus von Bendemann’s second
argument: if the motif of travelling does not show any significant impact on
the structure of the travel narrative, might it not be wiser to avoid speaking of
a “travel narrative,” especially in comparison with the “travel narratives” pro-
vided in Acts?
(3) The third and maybe most important pillar of von Bendemann’s case is
his detailed treatment of Luke 9:51–56, a passage that is quite often understood
as the programmatic introduction to Luke’s travel narrative. According to von
Bendemann, Luke 9:51 should indeed be read as an introduction – but only
to the immediately following story of the unfriendly Samaritans in 9:52–56.
Moreover, von Bendemann describes the structuring function of 9:51 not
only as pointing forward (cataphoric) but also as pointing backwards (ana-
phoric).29 Despite Luke’s use of the verb ἀναλαμβάνεσθαι for Jesus’s assump-
tion in Acts 1:2, 11, 22 (cf. 2 Kgs 2:9–11 [LXX]), von Bendemann argues that
the noun ἀνάλημψις in Luke 9:51 should not be understood in a similar way,
but rather as Luke’s description of Jesus’s transfiguration which was narrated
not long before (cf. Luke 9:28–36). In other words, Luke’s solemn expression
συμπληροῦσθαι τὰς ἡμέρας τῆς ἀνάλημψεως αὐτοῦ (Luke 9:51) is, in von
Bendemann’s view, a reference back to the transfiguration story but not for-
ward to a still to come event in Jesus’s life, whether his crucifixion, his rising
from the death, or his assumption. Summing up this three observations, von
25 Von Bendeman (Zwischen ΔΟΞΑ und ΣΤΑΥΡΟΣ, 70) observes that Moessner (Lord of
the Banquet, 15) does not draw any consequences from “the singular sensation that the initial
departure never leads to any specific locality nor ever consummates at a particular destination.”
26 Cf. von Bendemann, Zwischen ΔΟΞΑ und ΣΤΑΥΡΟΣ, 70–79 (“Das unbewältigte Problem
der literarischen Struktur eines in Lk 9,51 beginnenden Hauptteils des Lukasevangeliums”).
27 Von Bendemann (Zwischen ΔΟΞΑ und ΣΤΑΥΡΟΣ, 74) adds (as texts with less impact on
the scholarly discussion) “z. T. noch 18,31 [direkte Rede]; 19,28 bzw. weitere,” but does not list
Luke 13:31–35 (direct speech).
28 Following K. L. Schmidt (Der Rahmen der Geschichte Jesu: Literarkritische Untersu-
chungen zur ältesten Jesusüberlieferung [Berlin: Trowitzsch, 1919], 269), Wolter (Gospel accord-
ing to Luke, 2:44) states, “that Jesus and his disciples on their ‘travels’ to Jerusalem do not make
headway.”
29 Von Bendemann, Zwischen ΔΟΞΑ und ΣΤΑΥΡΟΣ, 86: “Lk 9,51 ist nach diesem Befund
ebensosehr ‘Überschrift’ (der folgenden Episode, die auf 10,1 hinführt) wie ‘Unterschrift’ von
Lk  9,28 ff.”
Bendemann concludes: “The ‘existence’ of such a major section in the Gospel

of Luke (included into a great variety of interpretative agendas) has to be
challenged fundamentally, as its end, its structure and its beginning remain
highly unclear.”30 Although von Bendemann’s new reading of Luke 9:51 – an
attempt to turn the “Archimedean point” of the “travel narrative”-concept into
its “Achilles’s heel”31 – as well as his own alternative structure of Luke’s middle
part (8:1–10:42, 11:1–18:30; 18:31–21:38) have been challenged,32 the cumula-
tive weight of his observations made some of his critics concede that the term
“travel narrative” might indeed be misleading,33 and thus should be avoided.34
However, one striking feature of Luke 9:51 still remains: the mention of
Jerusalem. In his discussion of the so-called travel notices (Reisenotizen), von
Bendemann emphasizes that these remarks are too different from each other
to display any kind of macro-level structure and/or unifying pattern.35 After
making an important concession – “What remains is the mention of the city
of Jerusalem which is present in the records from Luke 9:51 on (9:51, 53;
13:22; 17:11; 18:31; 19:28)”36 – von Bendemann quickly tries to play down the
relevance of this observation by pointing to the different forms of the name
“Jerusalem” in Luke:
Usually Luke uses the “biblical” form of the name “Jerusalem” (Ἰερουσαλήμ, also in 9:51
and 17:11), but in four instances he switches to the version Ἱεροσόλυμα, which can be
inflected like a Greek noun. Two out of these four appearences of Ἱεροσόλυμα are part
of the Reisenotizen (13:22 and 19:28 [cf. Mark 11:1]) while the other two are to be found
outside the hypothetical major section “travel narrative.”37
30 Von Bendemann, Zwischen ΔΟΞΑ und ΣΤΑΥΡΟΣ, 90: “Die ‘Existenz’ einer so vielfältig
interpretativ befrachteten Großsektion im Lukasevangelium, deren Ende, Struktur wie Anfang
fraglich bleiben, steht damit insgesamt zur Disposition.”
31 Von Bendemann, Zwischen ΔΟΞΑ und ΣΤΑΥΡΟΣ, 90: “Insgesamt ist damit deutlich,
daß der archimedische Punkt der Gesamthypothese ‘Reisebericht’/ ‘central section’ im Lukas
evangelium, Lk 9,51, bei näherer Analyse nicht weniger Probleme aufweist, als sie sich mit
der Bestimmung des Endes oder der Struktur der entsprechenden ‘Großphase’ im dritten
Evangelium verbinden. Lk 9,51 taugt weder als Einsatz für ein ‘eigenständiges Evangelium’ …,
noch verweist die Aussage auf den Beginn einer isoliert zu analysierenden Sektion.”
32 Cf. especially Noël, Travel Narrative, 186–206.
33 So Noël, Travel Narrative, 286.
34 Wolter, Gospel according to Luke, 2:44: “This is why the question does, in fact, arise of
whether it would not be better to abandon the designation ‘Reisebericht’ (travel narrative).”
35 Cf. von Bendemann, Zwischen ΔΟΞΑ und ΣΤΑΥΡΟΣ, 74–76.
36 Von Bendemann, Zwischen ΔΟΞΑ und ΣΤΑΥΡΟΣ, 75: “Was bleibt, ist die Nennung der
Stadt Jerusalem, die sich von Lk 9,51 an durch die Belege hindurchzieht (9,51.53; 13,22; 17,11;
18,31; 19,28).”
37 Von Bendemann, Zwischen ΔΟΞΑ und ΣΤΑΥΡΟΣ, 75: “Als Ausnahme von der ‘biblischen’
Namensform Ἰερουσαλήμ (so auch 9,51; 17,11) findet sich viermal im dritten Evangelium die
gräzisierte deklinierbare Namensform Ἱεροσόλυμα, und davon zweimal in den sogenannten
‘Reisenotizen’ 13,22 und 19,28 (par Mk 11,1). Die beiden weiteren Belege in Lk 2,22; 23,7 trans-
zendieren wiederum die hypothetische Großsektion ‘Reisebericht.’”
Obviously von Bendemann insinuates that the different forms of the name “Jeru-
salem” – within and without the “central section” – somehow weaken the impres-
sion of a purposeful pattern within Luke’s travel notes. But of course, this is not
the case. Given Luke’s often noticed Jerusalem-centeredness, it is nothing but
striking to see him six times create a remark following the pattern “ Ἰερουσαλήμ/
Ἱεροσόλυμα + verb of movement” between 9:51 and 19:28. While von Bend-
emann searches for identical-looking section markers, observing rightly that this
is not what the travel notices are and thus denying that they show any formative
effect,38 the Reisenotizen “perform” more like a choir of background singers: they
keep the motif of “Jerusalem, Jerusalem” (cf. Luke 13:34–35; Matt 23:37–39)
constantly in the listener’s/reader’s mind.39
Ironically, von Bendemann’s own observation that Luke 9:51 parallels 9:31
(“Thus, we find a parallel semantical structure in Luke 9:31 and 9:51: ἔξοδον /
αὐτοῦ / πληροῦν / ἐν Ἰερουσαλήμ – συμπληροῦσθαι / αὐτοῦ / τοῦ πορεύεσθαι /
εἰς Ἰερουσαλήμ”)40 supports the importance of the Jerusalem motif from
Luke 9:51 on, because Luke inserts both the mention of Jesus’s “exodus” and
“Jerusalem” into the transfiguration account (cf. Mark 9:2–10; Matt 17:1–9)
and thus “prepares”41 Luke 9:51. From its very beginning Jesus’s orientation
towards Jerusalem appears to be an orientation towards a violent death (cf. esp.
Luke 13:33!). To use the words of Filip Noël: “Not the travelling as such, but
the way Jesus travels, makes the difference between the sections of the Gospel.
Whereas Jesus is travelling around in the Galilean section, he clearly has a goal
in mind in the travel section.”42
38 Von Bendemann (Zwischen ΔΟΞΑ und ΣΤΑΥΡΟΣ, 74–75) rightly notes: “Allein die Wied-
erholung der Zielangabe Jerusalem zusammen mit Verben der Bewegung hat ohne Frage einen
struktuierenden [sic] Effekt ….” However, no consequences are drawn from this observation.
39 Wolter, Gospel according to Luke, 2:44: “On the other hand, the readers know since
9.51 that Jesus is on the way to Jerusalem with his disciples. They are explicitly reminded of
this fact two more times in 13.22 and 17.11. To this extent, the fact of their being-on-the-way-
to-Jerusalem does form the constantly present background of this part of the Lukan story of
Jesus, though without Luke conveying to the readers the specific places at which the individual
episodes are to be located.”
40 Von Bendemann, Zwischen ΔΟΞΑ und ΣΤΑΥΡΟΣ, 85: “Es ergibt sich so eine parallele
semantische Struktur zwischen Lk 9,31 und 9,51: ἔξοδον / αὐτοῦ / πληροῦν / ἐν Ἰερουσαλήμ –
συμπληροῦσθαι / αὐτοῦ / τοῦ πορεύεσθαι / εἰς Ἰερουσαλήμ.”
41 A. Hogeterp and A. Denaux, Semitisms in Luke’s Greek: A Descriptive Analysis of Lexical
and Syntactical Domains of Semitic Language Influence in Luke’s Gospel, WUNT 401 (Tübingen:
Mohr Siebeck, 2018), 181 n. 144.
42 Noël, Travel Narrative, 287. In a similar way, already J. B. Green (The Gospel of Luke,
NICNT 3 [Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1997], 389) wrote: “This way of construing the
narrative of the Jerusalem journey locates the emphasis less on the idea of a travelogue, from
Galilee to Jerusalem, and more on the motif of journeying and its destination, Jerusalem.” In
von Bendemann’s discussion of the travel motif this different quality is not taken into account:
“Einen negativen Befund [sc. in respect of a different situation after Luke 9:51] erbringt auch
die Frage nach einer Änderung der Aktion der erzählten Hauptfigur: von Jesu ‘Wanderschaft’
B. Creating a “Room of Repetition”:

Doublets in Luke 9–10
The above re-reading of von Bendemann’s study demonstrated the ambiguity

of Luke 9:51 as a section marker: On the one hand, it does not introduce a
clear-cut, well-structured travel account with an obvious finish, but instead
contributes to some sort of a narrative continuum (cf. esp. the parallels with
Luke 9:31). On the other hand, 9:51 introduces the motif of Jesus’s orientation
towards Jerusalem (cf., again, 9:31) which characterizes the Lukan story from
there on (cf. the Reisenotizen, 13:22; 17:11 etc.). Comparable to a “joint”43 within
the Lukan narrative, Luke 9:51 therefore generates effects both of continuity and
discontinuity.
In order to confirm this observation from a different angle, the present paper
will now turn to the two mission accounts in Luke 9:1–6, 10, and 10:1–20 which
embrace the beginning of the “pre-Jerusalem phase” in Luke 9:51. Because of
the unique nature of these twin accounts as narrative doublets formed by several
sayings doublets,44 some general remarks (regarding questions of definition,
terminology, and citation)45 on the “somewhat complicated”46 matter of doublets
seem to be in order. Afterwards a brief consecutive reading of Luke 9:1–6, 10,
and 10:1–20 shall illustrate how this special case of repetition contributes to the
creation of continuity and discontinuity in Luke.
1. Definition, Terminology, Citation

For a working definition of “doublet,” one might follow Harry T. Fleddermann:
“We can define a doublet as the repetition in one gospel of the same or closely
similar sections at least a verse in length.”47 Although verse divisions are not an
und seiner Wirkung während derselben wissen die Leser bereits von Stellen wie Lk 4,43 f.;
8,1–3 her” (Zwischen ΔΟΞΑ und ΣΤΑΥΡΟΣ, 87).
43 Von Bendemann, Zwischen ΔΟΞΑ und ΣΤΑΥΡΟΣ, 86.
44 Fleddermann, “Doublets in Luke,” 410: “Narrative doublets involve parallel narrative
accounts of the same or similar incidents whereas sayings doublets involve the repetition of
sayings, parables, or discourses.” For the terminological distinction, Fleddermann refers back to
G. Van Oyen, “The Doublets in 19th-Century Gospel Study,” ETL 73 (1997): 277–306, esp. 295.
However, Fleddermann (“Doublets in Luke,” 412) surprisingly states: “We do not encounter
any narrative doublets in Luke, but Luke’s gospel does contain a fair number of sayings dou-
blets.” Obviously Fleddermann classifies the two mission accounts only as “discourses” but not
as “narrative accounts.”
45 For a much more detailed substantiation of my decisions regarding the topics of this
section (including the history of scholarship), cf. my forthcoming paper “Wie viele Dubletten
finden sich im Lukasevangelium? Forschungsgeschichtliche und methodologische Klärungen.”
46 Fitzmyer, Gospel according to Luke, 1:81.
47 Fleddermann, “Doublets in Luke,” 409. Fitzmyer (Gospel according to Luke, 1:81) gives a
more extended definition: “By a ‘doublet’ in the Synoptic tradition is meant a passage occuring
twice within the same Gospel, but more specifically twice within the Lucan and Matthean
original part of Luke’s gospel but a structuring device of later readers, the refer-
ence to “at least a verse in length” seems to be a useful rule of thumb that helps
to distinguish “doublets” from smaller forms of repetitions. Likewise, “same or
closely similar section” is quite to the point, notwithstanding unavoidable dis-
cussions about what can and should be called “same or closely similar.” One
can ask, for example, if we should treat Luke 12:7 and 21:18 (cf. Acts 27:34) as a
variation of one and the same saying or, better, as two different elaborations of a
current motif. In any case, the focus on “repetition in one gospel” is crucial. This
makes “condensed doublet” – that is how Fleddermann calls, e. g., Matt 11:10
and Luke 7:27 (cf. Mark 1:2) – a doubtful category because in such a case we
find repetition neither in Matthew nor in Luke.48
To turn it another way: any confusion between “doublets” (Dubletten) and
“double traditions” (Doppelüberlieferungen) should be avoided. While “doublet”
is the name for a literary phenomenon which can be found in one single text (on
a synchronic level), “double tradition” labels a source-critical or tradition-critical
phenomenon, which is only “visible” if at least two texts are compared with each
other (on a diachronic level).49
Moreover, we should use terminology as neutrally as possible when dealing
with doublets. Since the days of Christian Hermann Weisse, who seems to have
introduced the term “doublet” to the study of the synoptic gospels,50 the study
of doublets has been closely linked to the development of the Two-Source
Hypothesis.51 Although there is still no firm consensus regarding whether the
Gospels, where they appear in both Triple and Double Traditions, or in one of these and in the
special source-material as well.” More recently, P. Foster (“The Doublets in Matthew: What Are
They Good For?,” in An Early Reader of Mark and Q, ed. J. Verheyden and G. Van Belle, BTS
21 [Leuven: Peeters, 2016], 109–38, 111–16) discusses the definition of a doublet in detail, and
concludes (ibid., 116): “Therefore, as a working definition, a doublet is a tradition that occurs
in two or more forms in a single gospel, where at least one of the forms of the tradition has been
drawn from source material.”
48 From the perspective of the Two-Source Hypothesis, Foster (“Doublets in Matthew,”
130, cf. 122) rightly notes that “Fleddermann’s so-called ‘condensed doublets’ are probably best
understood as examples of Mark-Q overlap, rather than being representative of a genuine dou-
blet.”
49 With R. Laufen, Die Doppelüberlieferungen der Logienquelle und des Markusevangeliums,
BBB 54 (Königstein: Hanstein, 1980), 389: “Es ist genau zwischen Doppelüberlieferungen und
Dubletten zu unterscheiden.”
50 Referring back to his Die evangelische Geschichte, kritisch und philosophisch bearbeitet,
2 vols. (Leipzig: Breitkopf & Härtel, 1838), C. H. Weisse declares: “Ich habe (Bd. I, S. 82 f.) jener
Erscheinung gedacht, welche ich, wie ich glaube, nicht unangemessen, mit dem Namen von
Doubletten evangelischer Apophthegmen bezeichnete: des wiederholten Vorkommens eines
und desselben prägnanten Ausspruchs an verschiedenen Stellen eines und desselben Evange
liums” (Die Evangelienfrage in ihrem gegenwärtigen Stadium [Leipzig: Breitkopf & Härtel,
1856], 146).
51 Cf. Foster, “Doublets in Matthew,” 116–22; and Van Oyen, “Doublets in 19th-Century
Gospel Study,” passim, who provides (at 283–85) an extensive synopsis of different lists of dou-
blets.
existence of sayings doublets should be regarded as a very strong argument for

this solution to the Synoptic Problem or not,52 the special relationship between
the study of doublets and the Two-Source Hypothesis has even affected the ter-
minology itself. E. g., it is quite common to divide Matthew’s and Luke’s sayings
doublets into a “Markan half ” and a “Q half ” – thereby clearly presupposing a
certain solution to the Synoptic Problem. Such a terminology is not completely
harmless but may even trigger rather flawed arguments.
To provide just one example, Fleddermann uses sayings doublets in Matthew
and Luke to argue that both Matthew and Luke incorporated all of Q. He writes:
“… when Matthew and Luke eliminate a doublet, they always drop the Markan
half, never the Q half.”53 However, for a simple reason this cannot be used as an
argument for the completeness of Q in Luke and Matthew: it is the very def-
inition of Q material to be present in both Matthew and Luke! Talking about a
“first half ” and a “second half ” (instead of “Markan half ” and “Q half ”) would
help to avoid such flaws and would ease the collaboration of (Lukan) scholars
working with different meta-theories regarding the Synoptic Problem.54
Finally, reflecting upon the appropriate citation of doublets is worth the effort
because even such a seemingly dull endeavor like creating lists of doublets is
not an innocent task. This becomes apparent when a simple question is posed:
what is the first sayings doublet in Luke? According to Fleddermann this is
Luke 8:16 || 11:33 (The Lamp; cf. Mark 4:21; Matt 5:15);55 according to Fitzmyer
it is Luke 8:8c || 14:35 (Whoever Has Ears; cf. Mark 4:9, 23; Matt 11:15; 13:9).56
In each case, the respective list was created from the perspective of a scholar
familiar with synoptic reading and presupposing (in my view: correctly) Markan
priority. But arguably most ancient, medieval, and even modern readers did and
do not read Luke while simultaneously checking a copy of Mark, a synopsis or
some Bible software. Such readers would not detect any kind of repetition when
they meet the first half of a doublet – whether in Luke 8:8c or Luke 8:16 – but
only when they meet the second half in Luke 14:35 or in Luke 11:33 respectively.
Therefore I propose to cite doublets in a slightly unusual way, i. e., by giving the
“second half ” of the doublet first (e. g., Luke 11:33 || 8:16; 14:35 || 8:8c) because
this allows to grasp more quickly where exactly repetition occurs.
What is, again, Luke’s first sayings doublet for first-time readers as described
above? It is neither Luke 11:33 || 8:16 nor Luke 14:35 || 8:8c, but Luke 10:4 || 9:3.
In 10:4 the reader of Luke first meets a “same or closely similar” saying to one he
52 Cf. Van Oyen, “Doublets in 19th-Century Gospel Study,” 277.
53 Fleddermann, “Doublets in Luke,” 412 n. 8 (emphasis mine).
54 A similar stand is now taken by Hägerland, “Editorial Fatigue,” 200, who proposes to
“use ‘conflated double tradition’ as a more neutral term for what has often been called ‘Mark-Q
overlaps.’”
55 Cf. Fleddermann, “Doublets in Luke,” 410–11, 413. Fleddermann’s “condensed doublets”
like Luke 3:16–17 and Luke 7:27 (cf. ibid., 412) are not taken into account here.
had already read before (in 9:3)! Thus, we observe a striking coincidence: repe-
tition of Jesus’s sayings surprisingly starts at a point in Luke’s narrative where at
the macro level (two missions) repetition appears very prominently too.
In addition to that, it is exactly with the Lukan Jesus’s explicit reference back
to 10:4 || 9:3 in 22:35–36 (ὅτε ἀπέστειλα ὑμᾶς … ἀλλὰ νῦν)57 that any repetition
of sayings abruptly stops:
In any case, with this [sc. ἱκανόν ἐστιν in Luke 22:38] Luke sets a strong conclusion. He
not only places an abrupt end to the dialogue about the swords and to the last shared meal
but also to Jesus’ equally numerous and unsuccessful attempts to make comprehensible to
the disciples what lies ahead of him. The time of the togetherness of Jesus and the disciples
ends here, as does the time of his activity up to the beginning of his being handed over.
From now on nothing will recur.58
Maybe it is appropriate to combine these observations in the concept of a Lukan

“room of repetition” (at least in terms of sayings doublets) with a prominent en-
trance in Luke 9–10 and an exit in 22:35–36. In any case, it should have become
evident from these methodological observations that the way how we describe,
label, and count sayings doublets really makes a difference.
2. A Consecutive Reading of Luke 9:1–6, 10, and 10:1–20

If we take this perspective seriously and read the two missions in Luke 9:1–6, 10,
and 10:1–20 as “two consecutive situations”59 within the Lukan story line, “we
have climactic parallelism; the second mission narrative is a grander version of
the first”:60 not only does Luke dedicate much more space to the second mission,
also on the narrative level the second mission excels the first in several respects.
(1) First, there are more disciples sent out. Regardless of whether one prefers
the reading “seventy” or “seventy-two” in Luke 10:1, regardless of which (sym-
57 For a fresh reading of Luke 22:35–38 in light of the Lukan doublets, cf. W. Grünstäudl,
“Companions, Hairs, and Swords: Preliminary Remarks on Dys/functional Variation in Luke’s
Story of Christ,” in Christ of the Sacred Stories, ed. P. Dragutinović, T. Nicklas, K. G. Rodenbik-
er, and V. Tatalović, WUNT 2/453 (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2017), 77–100, 85–98. Cf. also the
insightful contributions by D. L. Matson, “Double-Edged: The Meaning of the Two Swords in
Luke 22:35–38,” JBL 137 (2018): 463–80; and D. J. Neville, The Vehement Jesus: Grappling with
Troubling Gospel Texts, Studies in Peace and Scripture 15 (Eugene, OR: Cascade, 2017), 93–112
(I am thankful to the author for providing me with a copy of this chapter prior to publication).
58 Wolter, Gospel according to Luke, 2:479 (emphasis mine).
59 J. Schröter, Erinnerung an Jesu Worte: Studien zur Rezeption der Logienüberlieferung
in Markus, Q und Thomas, WMANT 76 (Neukirchen-Vluyn: Neukirchener, 1997), 166 n. 90:
“In der Perspektive des Lk handelt es sich darum nicht um eine ‘Dublette’, sondern um zwei
aufeinander aufbauende Situationen innerhalb seiner Erzählung.”
60 R. C. Tannehill, Luke, ANTC (Nashville: Abingdon, 1996), 173, who adds: “More space is
given to this second mission than to the mission of the twelve, and while the return of the twelve
elicits only a bland comment (9:10), the return of the seventy(-two) is accompanied by strong
statements of success and joy.”
bolic) meaning one connects with the respective number, regardless whether
one counts the Twelve among the seventy(-two) or not,61 there are simply a lot
more messengers sent out in 10:1 than in 9:2. (2) Moreover, these messengers
seem to be more successful than the Twelve.62 In this regard the different notes
on the exorcistic competence of the disciples are striking: although the Twelve
receive power and authority ἐπὶ πάντα τὰ δαιμόνια in Luke 9:1 (Mark 6:7,
ἐξουσίαν τῶν πνευμάτων τῶν ἀκαθάρτων), the disciples (μαθηταί) of Jesus are
not able to deal with an obviously evil πνεῦμα in Luke 9:37–43. Nevertheless,
John aims to hinder an outsider to cast out δαιμόνια ἐν τῷ ὀνόματι Ἰησοῦ. This
Markan story line (cf. Mark 6:7–9:40) finds some sort of a complementary echo
in the sending of the seventy(-two). These ἑτέροι (cf. Luke 10:1 with 9:52) do
not explicitly receive exorcist power when sent out by Jesus (this is only stated
after their return, 10:18) but nevertheless experience power over τὰ δαιμόνια ἐν
τῷ ὀνόματι Ἰησοῦ.63 It seems to be fitting that the quarreling μαθηταί (cf. 9:40,
43, 45–46 – the Twelve?) have to be confronted with the example of a παιδίον
in Luke 9:46–48 (cf. Mark 9:33b–37) while the return of the seventy(-two) pro-
vokes Jesus’s praise of the νήπιοι (Luke 10:21). (3) Finally, even Jesus seems to
be more engaged, as his joyful reaction to the return of the seventy(-two) in
Luke 10:17–20 manifestly contrasts with the rather thin remark in Luke 9:10.64
Like the Twelve, the seventy(-two) are sent to heal and to proclaim ἡ βασιλεία
61 Cf. Grünstäudl, “Companions, Hairs, and Swords,” 96–98. T. Frauenlob (Die Gestalt
der Zwölf-Apostel im Lukasevangelium: Israel, Jesus und die Zwölf-Apostel im ersten Teil des
lukanischen Doppelwerks, FB 131 [Würzurg: Echter, 2015], 157–58, 248 n. 436, 268) also
sympathizes with the view that the seventy(-two) include the Twelve but seems more concerned
about the coherence of his own (very theologically framed) picture of discipleship in Luke than
with the dynamics of Luke’s narrative.
62 Regarding the mission of the Twelve in Mark 6:6b–13, J. Marcus (Mark: A New Trans-
lation with Introduction and Commentary, 2 vols., AYB 27, 27A [New Haven, CT: Yale Univer-
sity Press, 2000, 2009], 1:385) observes that “Mark seems to contrast deliberately the disciples’
successful outreach here with Jesus’ ineffective mission to his hometown in the immediately
preceding passage [sc. Mark 6:1–6a]: Jesus could perform no miracle in Nazareth except for
laying his hands on a few sick people (arrōstois) and healing (etherapeusen) them (6:5), but the
Twelve anoint many sick people (arrōstous) with oil and heal (etherapeuon) them. This contrast
may be meant to emphasize that, just because one missionary has failed in a particular spot,
that does not necessarily mean that others will fail there – even if the first missionary was Jesus
himself !” If Marcus’s proposal is correct, it might not be implausible to assume that Luke, who
relocated Jesus’s visit to his hometown to the very beginning of his ministry (Luke 4:16–30),
was inspired by Mark to develop his own version of two consecutive (and differently successful)
missions.
63 W. Manson, The Gospel of Luke, MNTC 3 (London: Hodder & Stoughton, 1930), repr.
(1955), 125: “The exorcizing of demons was not, as it happens, included in the commission
given to them by Jesus, but it is over-subtle on this ground to interpret the joy of the disciples as
due to their success having exceeded expectation.”
64 D. P. Moessner, “Luke 9:1–50: Luke’s Preview of the Journey of the Prophet Like Moses,”
in idem, Luke the Historian of Israel’s Legacy, 205–37, 221 n. 67: “Contrast this ‘return’ with
that of the ‘seventy(-two)’ in 10:17–20!” Frauenlob (Die Gestalt der Zwölf-Apostel, 242) qualifies
Luke 9:10 as “seltsam abrupt, inhalts- und emotionslos.”
τοῦ θεοῦ (cf. 9:2, 6 [εὐαγγελιζόμενοι]; 10:9, 11), but they are more specifically
sent to all (πᾶσαν!) those places where Jesus himself wants to go. Of course, this
sending πρὸ προσώπου αὐτοῦ (10:1; cf. 9:52) closely resembles John the Baptist’s
mission (7:27) but it creates also a link to 9:51 (τὸ πρόσωπον ἐστήρισεν) which
might indicate that the changed situation after 9:51 (i. e., the “pre-Jerusalem
phase”) has at least some relevance for the changed competences of the mis-
sionaries after 9:51.
In other words, if the mission πρὸ προσώπου αὐτοῦ (Luke 10:1; cf. 9:52)
was so successful that “Jesus summarizes the effects of the mission of the sev-
enty(-two) in terms of the fall of Satan,”65 his firm decision (9:51, τὸ πρόσωπον
ἐστήρισεν) to go to Jerusalem, i. e., to his own death (cf. 9:31), seems to have
a soteriological quality within the Lukan framework: with Jesus’s orientation
towards Jerusalem Satan is defeated. This victory is not only “seen” (10:18)
by Jesus but also experienced by those who are sent as his representatives (cf.
10:16).
If this reading is correct, the dynamics of continuity and discontinuity are
again at stake in Luke 9–10. While Lukan scholarship has often noted a strong
focus on discipleship (related to Christological understanding) within the pas-
sages before 9:5166 or within those after 9:51,67 under the influence of the idea
of 9:51 being a deep caesura, the continuum of teaching and training in 9:1–
10:20 was less often acknowledged.68 As they bridge the gap of 9:51 by means
of repetition and culmination, the doublets in 9:1–6, 10, and 10:1–20 help to
create and to accentuate this continuum.69 However, 9:51 adds something new
regarding discipleship to the Lukan narrative as Jesus’s firm decision to go to
Jerusalem is seemingly at least one reason for the overwhelming success of the
second mission. Continuity and repetition (two missions in close distance)
therefore uncover discontinuity (a different soteriological situation after 9:51).

66 Wolter, Gospel according to Luke, 1:366: “Through these shortenings there emerges a
narrative collecting basin that obtains its coherence through the fact that it places the disciples’
instruction in discipleship at the center.”
67 J. Kremer, Lukasevangelium, NEchtB 3 (Würzburg: Echter, 1988), 113. “Eine durchge-
hende Gliederung des gesamten ‘Reiseberichts,’ der auch viele Jesu Weg nicht direkt betreffende
Traditionen umfaßt, ist nicht zu erkennen. Wohl aber lassen sich oft kleinere Einheiten abgren-
zen, die als unmittelbarer Kontext das Verständnis der Einzeltexte mitbestimmen. So stehen
951–1024 mehrere Texte, die durch das Thema Jüngerschaft verbunden sind.”
68 The importance of “discipleship” as a key topic on both sides of the Luke 9:51-divide is
expressed by H. Klein, Das Lukasevangelium, KEK 1/3 (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht,
2006), 356: “Der letzte Abschnitt [sc. Luke 9:1–50] handelte bereits, wenn auch unausge
sprochen, vom Thema ‘Nachfolge’. Um sie geht es im nächsten Hauptabschnitt.”
69 Redaction-critical observations even strengthen this impression as it could be argued
that all or almost all of the nine Markan pericopae dropped by Luke (Mark 6:45–8:26) are not
dedicated to the teaching and training of the disciples in a similar way.
C. Conclusion: Luke as a Master

of Smooth Transitions
In view of a widespread scholarly consensus envisaging Luke 9:51 as “a major

turning point” (Matera) within Luke’s narrative, Joseph M. Lear’s recent state-
ment that “Luke 9.28–10.42 is a literary unit”70 appears to be somewhat surpris-
ing. Taking into account Reinhard von Bendemann’s magisterial study, however,
it has to be acknowledged that the function of 9:51 as a new beginning has
too often been overemphasized in Lukan studies. However, von Bendemann’s
approach underestimates the importance of the “Jerusalem”-motif in 9:51 (pre-
pared in 9:31) as well in the Reisenotizen such as 13:22 and 17:11 (cf. 13:33,
34–35; 18:31; 19:11; 19:28). While the Lukan Jesus’s (and his disciples’) “jour-
ney” – for its bigger part one without progress – is neither geographically nor
thematically well-structured71 and thus the term “travel narrative” is potentially
misleading, 9:51 does add a new, very characteristic, and constantly present
“sound” to Luke’s story of Jesus (“Jerusalem, Jerusalem”). Hence, the most fitting
name for the “section” beginning in Luke 9:51 might not be “central section” or
“travel narrative” but pre-Jerusalem phase.
Fresh light on the question of continuity and discontinuity in Luke 9–10
is shed by the doublets in 9:1–6, 10, and 10:1–20 which open up a “room of
repetition” within Luke’s narrative that is closed in 22:35–38. A consecutive
reading of both mission accounts not only demonstrates that the second mission
is “a grander version of the first” (Tannehill) but also makes visible a passage
(9:1–10:20) which is to a large extend dedicated to the teaching and training of
Jesus’s disciples.
According to a pious tradition in the ancient church, the author of Luke’s
gospel was a painter and even portrayed the Virgin Mary. Despite its legendary
character, this tradition might be a helpful image for Luke’s composing tech-
nique:72 we see him not simply adding one chapter after another, but arranging
one layer of color over another. Some of these layers become thicker and more
impressive as the story line proceeds, some of them become thinner or are
going to fade out completely. Studying the Lukan doublets hopefully helps us
to appreciate these compositional effects a little bit more. In any case, students
70 Lear, “Luke’s Use of the Old Testament,” 161 n. 6.

71 At least not in a way that eases scholarly consent!
72 Calling Acts a “Gedächtnisgemälde” (a painting of memory/memories), K. Backhaus
(“Lukas der Maler: Die Apostelgeschichte als intentionale Geschichte der christlichen Epoche,”
in Historiographie und fiktionales Erzählen: Zur Konstruktivität in Geschichtstheorie und Ex-
egese, ed. idem and G. Häfner, BThSt 86 [Neukirchen-Vluyn: Neukirchener, 2007], 30–66, 30)
states: “Wie meist, ist die Legende im Faktum unzutreffend, doch im tieferen Sinn wahr. Lukas
‘malt’ mit Sprachfarben, (atl.-)biblischen Motivmustern, eindrucksvollen Szenenbildern und
dramatischen Geschehenssequenzen.”
of Luke’s literary artistry should take into account that the “master of smooth
transitions”73 is capable of following different compositional agendas at one and
the same time.74
73 C. Böttrich, “Lukas in neuer Perspektive,” EvT 79 (2019): 114–29, 117–18: “… denn

Lukas ist eher der Meister der gleitenden Übergänge als der scharfen Schnitte.”
74 In this context it is worth remembering the general reflections of Wolter (Gospel ac-
cording to Luke, 1:19) on the question of the “correct” structure/outline of Luke: “Every outline
is brought to the Lukan story of Jesus from outside and is therefore already part of its interpre-
tation. Accordingly, an outline is a text that the commentator writes.”
Reading Luke-Acts as Scriptural History
and Philosophical Biography
A Pragmatic Approach
to Lukan Intertextuality and Genre
John A. Darr
A. Introduction: Pragmatics and Genre

To date, audience-oriented (or, pragmatic) critics have contributed surprisingly
little to energetic, ongoing dialogues about the genre(s) of the Lukan writings.
Possible reasons for this lacuna are close at hand. Like many others across the
spectrum of gospel studies, pragmatists remain somewhat under the thrall of
Rudolf Bultmann’s form-critical argument that the canonical gospels were
Ur- or Kleinliteratur and sui generis, a contention that, if accepted, discourages
inquiry into broader genre options, at least for Luke’s first volume. Further
discouraging reader-oriented critics from debates about the genre issue is the
(false) perception that identifying ancient generic affinities is either impossible,
or not possible with sufficient precision to make the results worthwhile. The
plethora of scholarly options put forward for Lukan genre seems evidence in
itself that there might well be no “right” answer(s). Moreover, the mutability of
ancient genres – their tendency to mutate, morph, merge, and mix – dampens
experts’ enthusiasm for classifying particular literary pieces with certainty and
specificity. Perhaps the most important reason that pragmatic critics have large-
ly ignored or downplayed issues of genre, however, is that they have too often
followed their formalist kin, narrative critics (or narratologists), in adopting
an interpretive lens focused broadly on the general prose category of narrative,
rather than on a more specific literary genre or set of genres. Lukan scholars
find support for employing this expansive interpretive lens from Luke himself,
who – in the preface to his first volume – refers to his work as a narrative ac-
count (διήγησις). But is “narrative” as precise a literary category as we can as-
sign to the Lukan writings?
Upon further reflection, none of the usual excuses for critics to sidestep the
issue of genre proves substantial or convincing. Richard A. Burridge, perhaps
the contemporary doyen of gospel genre studies, has effectively countered Bult-
mann’s influential idea that the gospels are sui generis: “It is hard to imagine
398 John A. Darr
how anyone could invent something which is a literary novelty or unique kind
of writing. Even supposing it were possible, no one else would be able to make
sense of the work, with no analogy to guide their interpretation ….”1 The notions
that narratologists or pragmatists should ignore or downplay issues of genre
because other scholars advocate for such a multitude of highly diverse options,
or because of the inherent instability or mutability of ancient genres, are likewise
toothless. The reality is that considerable consensus now exists among Lukan
genre critics that the literary superstructure of Luke-Acts combines two genera
proxima, historiography and biography. To be sure, vigorous debates continue on
the nature, origins, and balance of this generic admixture and on the fine parsing
of subgenres within each category.2 Luke also alludes to or appropriates other
literary types (tragedy, epic, novel), styles (poetry, letter), and even individual
works (e. g., Euripides, Bacch. 794–795; Acts 26:14). But the superstructure of
his two-volume work is provided by a blend of historiography and biography.
Hence, there is no warrant for continuing to interpret Luke-Acts without regard
to its genre(s), that is, solely within the expansive prose category of narrative.
To enhance interpretive clarity and cogency, we can and should determine with
the greatest possible specificity what kind of narrative Luke-Acts is. A genre is es-
sentially a large and complex literary convention, a familiar framework (or, set
of expectations) on which readers rely to anticipate and actualize a text in toto.
Critics who have long recognized smaller literary and rhetorical conventions
(type scenes, stock characters, chreiai, synkrisis) as keys to understanding dis-
crete parts of Luke-Acts should have little trouble appreciating the value of
identifying a broader conventional scaffold – a genre or blended genre – for
interpreting the work in its entirety.
My purpose in this essay is to advance the scholarly conversation about
Lukan genology by reframing the issue in pragmatic perspective, that is, in
terms of how Luke’s text worked for authorial readers. Following a short section
on methodology, I propose a thesis and then proceed to soundings in the text
and further development of my argument. Along the way, I point out enduring
problems and potential areas for future research.
3rd ed. (Waco, TX.: Baylor University Press, 2018), 12 (quotation); see also, 9–11, I.35, I.105.
D. L. Smith and Z. L. Kostopoulos quote J. Derrida: “Every text participates in one or more
genres – there is no such thing as a text without genre – there is always a genre or genres, but
this participation is never a belonging” (“Biography, History and the Genre of Luke-Acts,” NTS
63 [2017]: 390–410, 406).
2 T. E. Phillips, “The Genre of Acts: Moving Toward a Consensus?” CurBR 4 (2006):
365–96, 384–85; Smith and Kostopoulos, “Biography, History and the Genre of Luke-Acts,”
397–401; Burridge, What Are the Gospels?, 343, 347–48; and S. A. Adams, The Genre of Acts and
Collected Biography, SNTSMS 156 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2013), 251.
Reading Luke-Acts as Scriptural History and Philosophical Biography 399
B. Methodological Matters and a Thesis
Some of the ground work for developing a pragmatic approach to identifying

the genre or genres of Luke-Acts has already been laid in recent scholarship.
Determining genre should no longer be based on comparisons of literary works
simply in terms of their subject matter and (rigid) forms. Rather, it must involve
what Sean Adams describes as the “evaluation of a dynamic system whose inter-
nal boundaries are constantly in flux.”3 Factors to be considered in this “dynamic
system” include not only subject matter and (flexible) forms, but also function,
purpose, and audience – inclusions that signal the appropriateness and interpre-
tive potential of an audience-oriented investigation.
From a pragmatic perspective, the task of determining the genre(s) of Luke-
Acts depends on identifying the authorial audience and understanding how it
processed the text. In other words, we must answer two related questions: (1)
who was the intended reader of Luke-Acts; and (2) how did the reader read?
I have answered these questions elsewhere in great detail; here I can only sketch
some aspects of an audience-oriented approach that relate to the genre issue.4
First, we must disabuse ourselves of the notion that identifying the reader means
finding the historical Theophilus or reconstructing a specific Lukan “com-
munity.” The reader is a heuristic construct built on the critic’s assessment of the
competencies that Luke assumed on the part of his ideal readers. The reader’s
set of competencies, also known as the extratext (from extratextual repertoire),
included social, cultural, political, geographical, historical, and literary knowl-
edge and skills. The area of the extratext that most concerns us here, of course,
is the literary sector. What literary genres and, yes, individual works did Luke
expect his readers to know and enlist for an optimal actualization of his text?
Framing the question about relevant literary comparanda in this way broadens
our scope of inquiry beyond Greco-Roman genres to include specific texts, the
most obvious and significant of which is the Septuagint. In other words, readers
could frame Luke’s text not only with reference to Greco-Roman genres, but
also – and perhaps most vitally – through intertextual linkages with narrative
patterns in Jewish scriptures.5
3 Acts and Collected Biography, 248–51.

4 For detailed descriptions of my pragmatic methodology, see J. A. Darr, On Character
Building: The Reader and the Rhetoric of Characterization in Luke-Acts, Literary Currents in
Biblical Interpretation (Louisville, KY: Westminster John Knox, 1992), 16–59; and idem, Herod
the Fox: Audience Criticism and Lukan Characterization, JSNTSup 163 (Sheffield: Sheffield
Academic Press, 1998), 11–91.
5 Smith and Kostopoulos observe that “the dominant Greco-Roman focus of current
scholarship on the genre of Luke-Acts requires a sharp corrective” in the form of much greater
attention to be paid to the import of biblical history and Jewish historiography (“Biography,
History and the Genre of Luke-Acts,” 407). On the need for an intertextual approach to Lukan
genre, especially with regard to intertextual “dialogue” between Luke-Acts and the Septuagint,
400 John A. Darr
Readers produce meaning by engaging a text sequentially, continually assess-

ing and reassessing the developing work through anticipation and retrospection
in an attempt to build consistent patterns among discrete textual data. The text
itself is schematic, replete with gaps and blanks. To connect the dots and fill
gaps, readers first look back to relevant information already provided by the text
as actualized to that point. If such information is not forthcoming, they turn for
help to the extratext. As reading progresses, they accumulate more and more
(intra)textual data and so are less reliant on extratextual input. But this means
that, when they first engage a text, readers are heavily dependent on the extra-
text and are especially alert to cues about the nature of the literature they are
beginning to actualize. In other words, they are vigilantly searching the extra-
text for the appropriate scaffolding on which to construct a whole work out of
the mass of textual data before them. Furthermore, in a dynamic critics call the
“primacy effect,” what readers encounter first in a text strongly conditions their
understandings of what comes later. Once readers are prompted to access an
antecedent literary work or genre to frame a text, they try to fit everything that
follows into that familiar pattern. Hence, Luke’s preface and opening chapters
are crucial for identifying the familiar literary scaffolding he expected readers to
bring to bear in actualizing the rest of his text.6
As noted above, recent scholarship has already narrowed our search for
these broad frameworks within the literary sector of Luke’s extratext to some
combination of historiography and biography. Can we further refine the search?
What kind (or kinds) of history and biography would the reader have had in
mind? My thesis is that Luke’s authorial reader quickly identified Luke-Acts as
a blend of Jewish scriptural historiography and Greco-Roman collected intellec-
tual biography. Although the rest of this essay unpacks, refines, and defends this
argument, a bit more explanation is warranted at this point. In terms of structure,
subject matter, and general functions, Luke-Acts was a foundation narrative, a
group history designed to establish, define, reinforce, promulgate, and defend
group identity. More specifically, it was a mix, or hybrid, of two compatible sub-
types of foundation narrative, one distinctly Jewish, the other Greco-Roman.
On one hand, Luke-Acts imitated, and continued, Israel’s foundation story from
the Jewish Scriptures. On the other, it emulated collected intellectual biography,
a genre Hellenistic philosophers and sophists used to define, defend, and pro-
mote their schools (haireseis). These two sub-types were well-suited to Luke’s
see A. J. Bale, Genre and Narrative Coherence in the Acts of the Apostles, LNTS 514 (London:
T&T Clark, 2015), 2, 79, 89–90. Two influential studies that (surprisingly) ignore the signif-
icance of Jewish scripture and Second Temple historiography for Lukan genre are Burridge,
What Are the Gospels?, and Adams, Acts and Collected Biography.
6 For more on how readers use extratextual knowledge and preliminary textual information
to “scaffold” literary works, see P. J. Rabinowitz, Before Reading: Narrative Conventions and the
Politics of Interpretation (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1987), 58–64.
task; and because both were highly group-oriented, apologetic, didactic, and
biographical, his reader was able to yoke them without difficulty.
C. Preliminary Pragmatic Soundings in the Text
Key to identifying the genre or genres of the Lukan writings is attending care-
fully to the preface in Luke 1:1–4. This long aside to the reader serves as an
introduction to Luke’s entire, two-volume narrative. In it, the implied author
provides a concise description of his literary endeavor.7 Luke identifies his
writing as a narrative account (διήγησις) of things that have been fulfilled (τῶν
πεπληροφορημένων πραγμάτων) among us (ἐν ἡμῖν). He also says that he has
structured (ordered or sequenced [see καθεξῆς]) the account so as to engender
in his reader certainty (ἵνα ἐπιγνῷς … τὴν ἀσφάλειαν) about matters hitherto
inadequately taught or communicated (περὶ ὧν κατηχήθης λόγων). Moreover,
Luke claims as one reliable source of information for his narrative those who
were eyewitnesses and ministers of the word (οἱ αὐτόπται καὶ ὑπηρέται τοῦ
λόγου) from the beginning (ἀπ’ ἀρχῆς).
This short passage bristles with unambiguous cues about the nature of the
text and how the reader should engage it via specific extratextual conventions.
Luke identifies his writing as a narrative account, a classification that helps
readers anticipate basic narrative elements like plot, character, and a narrator. As
mentioned earlier, however, narrative is not a genre, but a broad prose category.
7 L. C. A. Alexander’s study of the form of Luke’s preface poses intriguing interpretive is-
sues. After searching a wide array of formal parallels in Greco-Roman literature, she concludes,
somewhat surprisingly, that Luke 1:1–4 had less in common with historiographical prologues
than with prefaces to technical, scientific, or medical treatises like that of Galen the physician
(“Luke’s Preface in the Context of Greek Preface-Writing,” NovT 28 [1986]: 48–74, 65–74).
How, then, might the Lukan preface fit with the ensuing historical, biographical, and religious
narrative? I have suggested elsewhere that, by emulating medical prefaces, Luke may have been
priming readers to actualize the upcoming text psychagogically, that is, as a “therapeutic pro-
gram for the soul,” a conventional metaphor for philosophical training (J. A. Darr, “Narrative
Therapy: Treating Audience Anxiety through Psychagogy in Luke,” PRSt 39 [2012]: 335–48,
347–48). In such figurative scenarios, the philosopher-mentor played the role of physician, and
the philosophy student played the patient in need of spiritual, moral, and intellectual healing.
With his preface, was the implied author (Luke) posing as philosopher-physician and placing
his implied reader in the role of student-patient? This proposal may seem a stretch, but the
venerable Bede’s observations on the preface to Acts would certainly support it: “Theophilus
means ‘lover of God’ or ‘loved by God.’ All lovers of God may therefore believe that [Acts]
was written to them, because Luke the Physician wrote so that they might find health for the
soul there” (Bede, Exp. act. apost. 6; trans. R. I. Pervo, Acts: A Commentary, ed. H. W. Attridge,
Hermeneia [Minneapolis: Fortress, 2009], 35). This reading of Luke’s intent coheres with the
argument in this essay that Luke presented the Christian movement as a philosophical school.
In any case, the rhetorical thrust of Luke’s preface cannot be determined exclusively with
reference to form; we must listen most carefully to verbal clues as to its audience and intent.
402 John A. Darr
Wishing to gain a more precise handle on the upcoming text, readers wonder:
“Exactly what kind of ‘narrative account’ is it?” Pointers for narrowing the search
appear throughout the preface, where Luke gives clear, initial indicators of his
intended audience and purpose. First, the preface indicates that the narrative
will be about and for a particular group: it is a historical narrative that concerns
us, and so, by implication, not them (others, outsiders).8 It looks back to and
recounts events from a significant group beginning. These initiatory events are
supercharged with meaning, for they did not happen randomly or in the normal
course of history. Rather, they are things that have been fulfilled. Reference to
fulfillment signals that the group has an oracular pre-history: divine oracles
confirmed the validity of the group’s provenance and continue to frame its iden-
tity.9 Moreover, at the time of writing, the original generation of authoritative in-
group members – those who authenticated and passed on the word, the group’s
formative tradition – has largely, if not entirely, passed on. The named reader,
Theophilus, has already learned some of this insider information, but he needs
to know more before he can achieve true and certain understanding of – and
standing within – the group. The narrative promises to provide him, other group
members, and would-be members of his generation, with that knowledge. In
short, the upcoming narrative will serve didactic and formative functions within
the group.
The preface’s indicators of intended audience and purpose set up strong
readerly expectations about the type of narrative they were about to read. It
would not be biography, pure and simple, because – at the broadest discourse
level – it would not be (just) about an important person (Jesus) or even other
persons (the apostles). Rather, it would recount the founding events, the things
(πράγματα) fulfilled, that brought the group – us – into being.10 Moreover, it
8 It is best not to think in terms of an actual community that we can reconstruct sociologi-
cally; rather, we should envision what J. Rüpke calls a notional (or textual) community formed
through the reading and writing of texts, especially narrative texts, for “it was narratives above
all else that offered opportunities to affirm one’s identity and one’s relationship to the world in
the mirror of others’ lives, in their ‘histories.’” Such foundational narratives “eventually created
communities, notional ones; they proffered a ‘we’ that might be joined or opposed” (Pantheon:
A New History of Roman Religion, trans. D. M. B. Richardson [Princeton, NJ: Princeton Univer-
sity Press, 2018], 340).
9 J. Lieu has argued convincingly that, in attempting to define and defend Christian iden-
tity, the early Christian apologists looked “not to the market-place, but to the library.” That
is, they fashioned their movement’s identity with reference to literary traditions rather than
through direct social and religious comparisons to contemporary Jews and pagans (Neither
Jew nor Greek? Constructing Early Christianity, SNTW [London: T&T Clark, 2002], 77–79).
Of utmost importance for the formation of Christian identity was adopting and adapting the
“library” – the literary “world” – of Jewish scripture.
10 Lukan critics who see the text as focusing on an individual or individuals tend to clas-
sify it as biography, while those who see it as directed to a community are inclined to view it
as history. The theological implications of these genre choices are significant, with the former
group of critics understanding Luke-Acts as primarily christological and the latter seeing it as
would be tied to a prior set of oracles, an anticipatory history, which (it soon
becomes clear) is in Jewish scriptures. The preface thus cues readers to read
intertextually with scripture. Readers of the preface also realize that maintaining
group identity entails witnessing, that is, careful learning and proper retelling
of the group’s foundation story. The narrative’s primary purpose will be to
engender within them certainty about group provenance and teachings. Luke
promises that the structure of his narrative will produce this desired effect, so the
reader is sensitized to pay special attention to structural features that establish
narrative authority and create confidence or assurance in the veracity of its dis-
course. References to the word, to certainty of knowledge, and to learning hint at
the group’s philosophical nature. In summary, the preface primes readers to take
the upcoming story in terms of group identity and formation, especially within
the framework of earlier oracles and by means of the careful handing down of
tradition and teachings by a series of authoritative pedagogues.
As readers move beyond the preface and enter the imaginative world of the
narrative, they recognize a distinctive style of language that immediately trans-
ports them back to the historical narratives of the Jewish scriptures in Greek
form. There they encounter a familiar landscape and a cast of stock characters.
Pious Israelites walk the rolling hills of Judah (now Judea) and worship in the
Jerusalem temple. John the Baptist’s father is a priest. Angels visit humans, and
a barren woman miraculously conceives. A prophet and a prophetess make their
appearance. Oracles about the future ministries and fates of John and Jesus are
delivered. John is to be a “prophet” of the Most High (that is, a new Moses or
Elijah), and Jesus is to be the “Son of the Most High” (that is, a new David).
The basic theme is that Israel’s restoration is at hand. The extratextual signals
could not be clearer: this narrative should be read as scriptural history – more
specifically, as the type of history recounted in scripture from Moses through
David. Of course, Luke uses this scriptural historiography selectively: in essence,
he simplifies, telescopes, and stylizes it to suit his own purposes and his story’s
limited scope.
At the same time, authorial readers of the Lukan infancy narratives (Luke 1–2)
recognize that the genre of Greek biography is also in play. The focus on family
and ancestry, the idea that Jesus is engendered by the deity (through the agency
essentially ecclesiological. For a good example of the biographical-christological take on the

gospels in general and Luke in particular, see Burridge, What Are the Gospels?, 185–212, 322–40.
From this angle of vision, Acts becomes either a continuation of Jesus’s biography in the Gospel,
or a “biography” of the church. Representing the other pole in the debate is H. Cancik, who
maintains that Luke-Acts is “cultural historiography,” the history of a religious institution (the
church) modeled along the lines of the histories of philosophical sects (“The History of Culture,
Religion, and Institutions in Ancient Historiography: Philological Observations Concerning
Luke’s History,” JBL 116 [1997]: 673–95). My position is much closer to Cancik’s: Luke-Acts
was indeed highly biographical, but it was collected biography as group history. And, in terms of
theology, it was christology and pneumatology in the service of ecclesiology.
404 John A. Darr
of the Holy Spirit), notes about the growth and development of both John and
Jesus, and the synkrisis – paralleling of protagonists for comparison and con-
trast – all bring Greek biography to mind. Especially noteworthy in this regard is
Luke’s story of the boy Jesus interacting precociously with teachers in the temple,
since it portends his adult role as teacher-philosopher.
By the time readers move on from the infancy narratives, they are fully pre-
pared to read the remainder of Luke-Acts as a hybrid of Jewish scriptural history
and Greco-Roman biography. Viewed through this dual prism, John the Baptist,
Jesus, Peter, and Paul (among other church leaders) appear as Hebrew prophets
like Moses and Elijah on the one hand, and as Hellenistic philosophers on the
other. Like Moses, Jesus leads his followers on a lengthy and circuitous route
toward a divinely-ordained goal, delivering a set of religious and moral instruc-
tions along the way and training leadership groups of twelve and seventy (or
seventy-two) to continue after his “exodus.” Opposing Jesus are the Pharisees,
who assume the role of murmurers against Moses in the wilderness. Echoing
Ahab and other Septuagintal monarchs, Herod the Tetrarch serves as the wicked
king who opposes the Lord’s prophets (both John the Baptist and Jesus). And, in
Acts, the risen Jesus directs the Spirit to empower chosen successors to further
his prophetic mission. In short, Luke-Acts consistently emulates the scriptural
account of Israel’s formation through the Spirit, and Spirit-authorized prophets,
to describe, structure, and validate the development of the Christian movement
and convey its teachings.
On the Greco-Roman biographical side of the Lukan coin, both Jesus and
John the Baptist emerge as wandering Hellenistic philosophers. Jesus the teacher
gathers a group of μαθηταί (disciples) and pursues the ideal philosophical task
of παιδεία, educating his students spiritually and ethically with the conventional
rhetorical techniques and topoi of the Hellenistic moral philosophers.11 The
goal of this kind of education was not learning a religious law, but striving after
true wisdom and genuine morality. The group being formed was not a religious
people (like Israel), but a philosophical school, a Jewish αἵρεσις. Josephus’s de-
lineations of schools or sects – Pharisees, Sadducees, Essenes – under the broad
umbrella of Jewish philosophy forms a salient, comparative backdrop for this
aspect of Luke’s depiction of Christians.12 Viewed from this perspective, Jesus
and his disciples belong to the πεπαιδευμένοι, the educated elite (philosophers
or sophists) who argue their cases and propound their wisdom to each other
11 In his extensive study of Jesus’s portrayal as Hellenistic philosopher in the Gospels, R. M.
Thorsteinsson observes that, “compared with the other Gospels, Luke’s Jesus is the most ‘philo-
sophical,’” and, “Luke characterizes Jesus in much the same way as a Stoic would have” (Jesus
as Philospher: The Moral Sage in the Synoptic Gospels [Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2018],
177). On Luke’s use of philosophical training techniques, see Darr, “Narrative Therapy.”
12 S. Mason, Josephus and the New Testament (Peabody, MA: Hendrickson, 1992), 63–69,
216.
and to the ἰδιῶται, the unschooled masses. Their primary intellectual foils are
the Pharisees, whom Luke drapes in the stereotypical, highly-polemicized garb
of the oft-reviled sophists – the disingenuous, hypocritical, and greedy foes of
true philosophers.13 Because bold resistance to tyranny was the philosopher’s
touchstone, both John and Jesus must confront a cruel and anxious Hellenistic
tyrant as played by Herod the Tetrarch.14 Luke’s Jesus (in contrast to Mark’s)
shows Stoic poise and controls his emotions during times of great stress,
especially in the passion account.15 And, as has long been recognized, Jesus’s
trial and death in Luke are staged as a philosopher’s martyrdom, with many
parallels to Socrates’s demise.16 Later in the narrative flow, Peter and John amaze
the Sanhedrin by defending themselves articulately and with παρρησία (a prime
philosophical virtue) in the manner of genuine πεπαιδευμένοι, rather than as
the ἄνθρωποι ἀγράμματοι καὶ ἰδιῶται (uneducated persons) they were thought
to be (Acts 4:13). Later in Acts, Paul famously debates the philosophers on Mars
Hill in Athens. At Ephesus, Paul plays the philosopher both in the synagogue and
in a local philosophical school (Acts 19:8–10). For three months, he holds forth
with παρρησία in the synagogue, “reasoning and persuading” them about the
kingdom of God. He then withdraws from the synagogue, takes disciples with
him, and for two years philosophizes (discusses, argues [διαλεγόμενος]) daily in
the σχολή (lecture hall) of Tyrannus. To sum up: Luke’s repeated references and
allusions to philosophers, disciples, teaching, sects, and schools cued authorial
readers to see his protagonists as philosophers and the Christian movement as a
philosophical school, and thus to actualize the text along the lines of the philo-
sophical lives, or collected intellectual biography.
Our brief soundings in Luke-Acts indicate that Luke prompted readers to use
two familiar literary scaffolds to actualize his text. First, authorial readers were
to read intertextually vis à vis Jewish scriptural historiography with its focus on
the formation of a people (Israel), whose leaders are Spirit-authorized prophets
and whose ethos is shaped by divine oracles (the law). Second, readers were
to actualize the text as Greco-Roman intellectual biography, with its attention
to the historical formation of a school guided by philosophers and devoted to
παιδεία. We turn now to a fuller analysis of these ancient literary types and their
relation to Luke-Acts.
13 J. A. Darr, “Murmuring Sophists: Extratextual Elements in Luke’s Portrayal of Pharisees,”

in Anatomies of the Gospels and Beyond: Essays in Honor of R. Alan Culpepper, ed. M. C. Par-
sons, E. S. Malbon, and P. N. Anderson, BibInt 164 (Leiden: Brill, 2018), 243–58, 249–58.
14 On Luke’s depiction of Herod as the typical Hellenistic tyrant opposing philosophers,
see Darr, Herod the Fox, 103–27, 137–212; idem, On Character Building, 127–68. F. Dicken
builds on the argument that Luke depicted Herod as a stereotyped malicious ruler opposing the
Christian philosopher-prophets in Herod as a Composite Character in Luke-Acts, WUNT 2/375
(Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2014).
15 Thorsteinsson, Jesus the Philosopher, 165–70.
16 Thorsteinsson, Jesus the Philosopher, 170–77.
406 John A. Darr
D. Luke-Acts and Jewish Scriptural History:

The Holy Spirit as Key Structural Element
In many and diverse ways, Luke prompted authorial readers to actualize his
Christian foundation narrative with reference to Israel’s foundation narrative
in Jewish scriptural historiography. Indeed, Luke-Acts not only emulates that
scriptural history, but also extends it into his audience’s present.17 Establishing
this complex, intertextual interface serves a vital rhetorical purpose for Luke,
namely, to engender the certainty (or assurance) about the validity of Christian
origins and teachings that he covets for his readers. The key to fostering that
readerly assurance is the Holy Spirit. As a continuing character, the Spirit not
only links together the stages of Israel’s formation and development as a people,
but also helps to embed the narrative world of Luke-Acts (from the birth of John
the Baptist to the bold and unhindered preaching of Paul in Rome) within the
imaginative universe of Jewish scripture (from creation to judgment).18 The
Christian movement is thus shown to be the end product of a grand historical
program that God meticulously planned and implemented to form – and period-
ically re-form – a people. But God does not step into the action directly and per-
sonally. Rather, the Spirit mediates the divine plan, certifying, motivating, and
empowering the actions and teachings of its prophetic agents, and delineating
and validating its developmental stages.19 Thus, the Spirit is the prime structural
element that defines and buttresses both the horizontal (diachronic) and vertical
(divine-human) dimensions of Luke’s narrative continuum.20
Before examining in more detail the complex and highly significant roles of
the Holy Spirit, however, we must develop a fuller definition of Israel’s scrip-
17 As Smith and Kostopoulos observe, “whether Lukas knew Homer or Josephus can be
debated; that he sought to continue the biblical history is widely accepted and worthy of greater
attention” (“Biography, History and the Genre of Luke-Acts,” 408). See also S. Shauf, The Divine
in Acts and Ancient Historiography (Minneapolis: Fortress, 2015), 231–32.
18 There is no equivalent in Greco-Roman historiography to the role of the Holy Spirit in
Jewish scriptural historiography; see Shauf, Divine in Acts, 216, 260. A consensus of the recent
outpouring of research on pneumatology in Luke-Acts is that Luke’s ideas about the Holy Spirit
stem from Jewish scripture (and later developments in Jewish thought) rather than from Greek
divinatory practice, mysticism, or philosophy. See J. A. Fitzmyer, “The Role of the Spirit in Luke-
Acts,” in The Unity of Luke-Acts, ed. Joseph Verheyden, BETL 142 (Leuven: Peeters, 1999),
165–83, 168–69; M. Turner, “The ‘Spirit of Prophecy’ as the Power of Israel’s Restoration and
Witness,” in Witness to the Gospel: The Theology of Acts, ed. I. H. Marshall and D. Peterson
(Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans: 1998), 327–48, 328–29.
19 H. Gunkel, Der Heilige Geist bei Lukas: Theologisches Profil, Grund und Intention der
lukanischen Pneumatologie, WUNT 2/389 (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2015), 266–68.
20 O. Mainville’s observation that, “if one dared to take out from [Acts] all the times the
Spirit is mentioned and intervenes, one would be left with an account deprived of its skeletal
structure,” applies not only to Acts, but also to the Lukan Doppelwerk as a whole; quote from
The Spirit in Luke-Acts, trans. S. Spolarich (Woodstock, GA: Foundation for Pentecostal
Scholarship, 2016), 238–39.
tural foundation narrative in terms of group, leadership, and ethos. The group in
focus is the people of Israel, a fictive ethnic and religious assemblage developing
historically in a covenantal relationship with a deity. Its leadership consists of
divinely authorized and inspired prophets who mediate, interpret, and promote
the covenantal relationship between the two parties. Group ethos is provided by
divine revelation in the form of law (and other oracles) delivered through the
prophets. The core of this foundation narrative is the exodus story which features
formative salvific events (escape from bondage, delivery of the law, making of a
covenant, wandering in the wilderness, and traveling toward the promised land)
under Moses’s prophetic leadership. In this foundation narrative, biography
and history are fused: the life of Moses, from his birth and upbringing to his
testing and on to his major accomplishments, teachings, and dramatic death is
inextricably intertwined with the formative, foundational events that establish
and shape the people’s identity.
Israel’s formation continues into the so-called Deuteronomistic History as
new Spirit-authorized and inspired leaders (judges, kings, and prophets) guide
the people through major crises and the resultant social and cultural shifts
that reshape group identity. This pattern of Spirit-ratified group development
through transfers of authority began with Moses’s choosing of the twelve tribal
leaders and the seventy(-two) elders, but continues with, for example, Joshua,
Gideon, Elijah, Elisha, Saul and David. Luke adopted this scriptural pattern of
Spirit-sanctioned historical change within the group as the basic superstructure
of Luke-Acts, although he telescoped it into a much shorter time-frame (just two
generations) to fit the brief history of the Christian movement.21 The Gospel of
Luke mirrors the exodus story – the core of the Israelite foundation narrative –
with its intertwining of the biography of the protagonist (Moses – Jesus) with
authoritative teaching (Sinai law – words of Jesus), salvific events, a wandering
journey, and the institution of a covenant binding the people to God (Sinai –
New Covenant).22 The Acts of the Apostles then echoes the unfolding of Israelite
history after Moses under prophetic leadership and the aegis of the Spirit.
21 Shauf, Divine in Acts, 217–20, 260. According to Shauf, Luke borrowed the Spirit from
Jewish scripture but so intensified its role (in Acts) that he obscured its scriptural portrayal as
“a mysterious, sporadic, and unpredictable force whose presence and action are far from being
pervasive and systematic” (220). While it is true that references to the Spirit are far less frequent
in the Septuagint than in Luke-Acts, I argue (contra Shauf and with L. R. Neve [see below]) that
a clear and consistent pattern of using the Spirit to certify major developments in the narrative
emerges in Jewish scriptural historiography; Luke adopted and adapted that literary-historical
device to his narrative.
22 According to M. G. Kline, gospel form critics have “overlooked the obvious” in failing to
find the origins of the gospel genre in Exodus, especially with regard to its focus on establishing
a covenant (“The Old Testament Origins of the Gospel Genre,” WTJ 38 [1975]: 1–27, 3–4). In
Luke, Jesus institutes “a new covenant in my blood” (22:20). Kline’s observation is basically
correct but simplistic and too narrowly focused; the intertextual dynamics within the Jewish
scriptures themselves and between Luke-Acts and the scriptures are more complex than he
408 John A. Darr
A closer look at the Spirit-oriented patterning of scriptural history and its

emulation in Luke-Acts is warranted. In his 1972 book, The Spirit of God in the
Old Testament, Lloyd R. Neve observed the following about the shifts and devel-
opments in Israel’s formation from Moses onward in scriptural historiography:
In such a time of change and consolidation the need for divine authentication for each
new institution or for each change in system is quite apparent. This divine certification
was provided in a definite and sometimes very visible way by the gift of the spirit of God.
In this early period the spirit of God is above all the charismatic spirit which stands in the
service of the covenant. It is possible to trace the changes in Israel’s institutions by the texts
which speak of the spirit of God.23
We need not agree with Neve’s historicist assumptions to grant that his observ-
ation is insightful from a literary perspective. At major stress points – that is,
junctures of potential discontinuity – within the narrative of Israel’s development,
the author resorts to dramatic interventions of the Spirit to maintain continuity
while endorsing change. When great potential exists for readers to question or
doubt the veracity or validity of political, cultural, or social change as depicted in
the foundation narrative, the author brings in the Spirit as the ultimate certifying
agent. This pneumatological rhetorical strategy is especially common and ap-
parent when authority is transferred.24 When Israelite leadership expands from
Moses to include seventy (or seventy-two?) elders, the narrator takes pains to
depict the Lord coming down in a cloud, taking some of the Spirit from Moses,
and placing it upon the chosen elders. They, in turn, prophesy, giving dramatic
evidence of their reception of the Spirit. Even the two elders who miss the
show by remaining in camp receive the Spirit and prophesy (Num 11:16–30).
The Spirit certifies the transfer of power from Moses to Joshua (Num 27:18;
Deut 34:9). It also empowers and validates judges as representatives of a new
kind of leadership – largely military – in Israel (e. g., Othniel, Gideon, Jephthah,
Samson [Judg 3:10; 6:34; 11:29; 13:25]). With the advent of the monarchy, Saul
receives the authentication of the Spirit, both in the manner of the judges (for
military leadership; 1 Sam 11:6) and with the addition of ecstatic prophesying
perceives. The classical locus of the exodus story is in Exodus–Numbers, but it reverberates
down through the scriptural continuum; and Luke picks up its echoes in Deuteronomy, the
Elijah-Elisha stories, and in Second Isaiah’s new exodus. On Luke and Deuteronomy, see D. P.
Moessner, Lord of the Banquet: The Literary and Theological Significance of the Lukan Travel
Narrative (Minneapolis: Fortress, 1989). On the Elijah-Elisha stories, see differing takes in T. L.
Brodie, The Crucial Bridge: The Elijah-Elisha Narrative as Interpretive Synthesis of Genesis–
Kings and a Literary Model for the Gospels (Collegeville, MN: Liturgical Press, 2000); and J. S.
Kloppenborg and J. Verheyden, eds., The Elijah-Elisha Narrative and the Composition of Luke,
LNTS 493 (London: Bloomsbury T&T Clark, 2014). On Isaiah see D. W. Pao, Acts and the
Isaianic New Exodus, WUNT 2/130 (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2000).
23 L. R. Neve, The Spirit of God in the Old Testament (Tokyo: Seibunsha, 1972), repr.
(Cleveland, TN: CPT Press, 2011), 24 (emphasis mine).
24 Gunkel (Heilige Geist bei Lukas, 300) refers to the Spirit functioning in this capacity as an
“Auswahlkriterium für die Amtsübertragung.”
(1 Sam 10:10). David’s ascension to the throne of Israel represents a rift in the

narrative flow; the kingdom is torn from Saul and handed over to David. This
troubled transition requires evidence of the Spirit’s sanction: at 1 Sam 16:13,
Samuel anoints David; and “the Spirit of the Lord sprang upon David from
that day onward.” On the prophetic front, Elisha’s request to receive “a double
portion” of Elijah’s Spirit (2 Kgs 2:9c) when the latter departs, echoes the story
of the seventy elders receiving some of the Spirit that rested upon Moses. With
regard to these Septuagintal examples: the Spirit may or may not remain on
the recipient; the reception of the Spirit may or may not be accompanied by
prophetic signs; and, once the Spirit has been shown to sanction a new type of
leader, it is not necessary to show that all following leaders of that type receive
the Spirit (e. g., Samuel and Solomon).25
Luke adopts this scriptural pattern of Spirit intervention and authorization
at potentially disruptive junctures and uses it extensively in structuring his own
account. Predictably, he clusters references to the Spirit around major “joints” in
his narrative, that is, at places where audience uncertainty, anxiety, or resistance
would most likely arise due to change or expansion. In the Gospel of Luke, refer-
ences to the Spirit appear almost exclusively within the first four chapters, from
Jesus’s birth, to his baptism (anointing) and temptation, to – most notably – his
inaugural statement at his home synagogue in Nazareth.26 The reliable narrator,
angels, relatives, prophets, scripture, and finally Jesus himself declare that he
has the Spirit and/or is of the Spirit. In his first public statement, Luke’s Jesus
applies the words of Isaiah (61:1) to himself (Luke 4:16): “The Spirit of the Lord
is upon me ….” All these witnesses to the Spirit assure readers that Jesus, and
his ministry and movement, are legitimate, divinely-ordained developments in
the continuing story of Israel. From a broader perspective, the emphasis on the
Spirit at the beginning of the account establishes a solid connection between
Judaism and the new “way.” The reader is now prepared and predisposed to
read Luke-Acts within the framework of scriptural history. But the Spirit also
helps to differentiate Jesus from all that has come before: not only is he certified
and empowered by the Holy Spirit, but also he is born of the Holy Spirit. He is
not simply a Spirit-endowed prophet (like John) who calls the chosen people to
repentance; rather, he is the son of God who represents their salvation.
A second cluster of references to the Spirit occurs at what many critics now
call the hinge of Luke’s narrative, the transition between the time of Jesus and
the time of the church at the end of the gospel and the beginning of Acts.27 Je-
sus’s departure – a definite, dramatized event in Luke-Acts – raises a number
of difficult, indeed troubling christological, eschatological, and ecclesiological
25 Neve, Spirit of God in the Old Testament, 25–27.

26 A. George, “L’Esprit Saint dans l’oeuvre de Luc,” RB 85 (1978): 500–42, 511.
27 George, “L’Esprit Saint,” 519–20.
410 John A. Darr
questions. Where did Jesus go, and how does he relate to God and to his follow-
ers now? When, and in what manner, might he return? What becomes of Jesus’s
followers in his absence? At this juncture, where the potential for disjuncture
is so great, Luke once again turns to the Spirit to ensure narrative continuity
and to foster reader certainty. Just before leaving, Jesus commands his disciples
through the Holy Spirit to remain in Jerusalem until they are anointed by – and
receive power from – the Holy Spirit in the near future (Luke 24:49; Acts 1:2, 4,
5, 8). The promised anointing, which Luke dramatizes at length (Acts 2:1–36),
occurs at Pentecost and is accompanied by conventional scriptural signs of the
Spirit (wind, fire, glossalalia). The prophet Joel had predicted all of this: “In the
last days, God declares, I will pour out my Spirit upon all flesh, and your sons
and daughters shall prophesy …” (Joel 2:28–32; Acts 2:17–21). Jesus’s followers
are now fully certified to venture into the future, and into the world, as authentic
witnesses to Jesus’s deeds and teachings. Narrative continuity is maintained.
But the Spirit also serves to distinguish this new period from what came be-
fore: from now on, the Spirit will not speak and work through Jesus. Rather,
Jesus, as exalted Lord, will direct the Spirit. Luke has Peter, still under the in-
fluence of his anointing by the Spirit, announce and explain this seismic shift:
“Having been exalted to God’s right hand, he [Jesus] received from the father the
promised Holy Spirit, and has poured out what you are now seeing and hearing”
(Acts 2:33; see also Luke 24:49). There is no need to worry about the absence
of Jesus and the delay of the parousia, for Jesus still interacts with his disciples
through the Spirit; and the eschaton has been realized (at least in part) with
the outpouring of the Spirit at Pentecost.28 At this point, Jesus and his followers
have adopted their new, Spirit-designated roles and can sally forth confidently to
confront the challenges ahead.
As the church advances in Acts, the Holy Spirit continues to authenticate
changes and expansions. The twelve “Hebraic” Jewish apostles lay hands on
seven “Hellenistic” Jews who are “filled with faith and the Holy Spirit,” thereby
ordaining them to ministry (Acts 6:1–6). When Philip proclaims Christ and
performs miracles among the Samaritans, many of them respond positively and
are baptized. Peter and John come from Jerusalem and lay hands on them, at
which point they too receive the Holy Spirit (Acts 8:4–8, 14–17). The expansion
of the church beyond Judaism proper is thus initiated and endorsed. A further,
even more controversial extension of the church occurs when Peter, under the
direction of the Spirit, preaches at the house of Cornelius the Gentile, resulting
in the Holy Spirit falling upon all who listen (Acts 10:19–20, 44–45; 11:12–18).
In agreement with the Holy Spirit (15:28), the church will now admit Gentiles
without requiring circumcision, and with just a few Jewish legal restrictions on
diet and sex. The westward expansion of the church continues in Paul’s missions,
28 Mainville, Spirit in Luke-Acts, 246–47.

which the Holy Spirit micromanages at strategic points (“Go into Macedonia,
not Asia!” [16:6–10]). In Acts’ final scene Paul tells the Jewish leaders in Rome
that the Holy Spirit had inspired Isaiah (6:9–10) to predict Jewish resistance to
the gospel; therefore, the church’s turn toward the Gentiles was justified. Luke
thus uses the Spirit as a rhetorical device to help readers negotiate the radical,
potentially anxiety-inducing ethnic shifts in the gestation of the church. In the
words of Aaron Kuecker,
… for Luke, the Holy Spirit is the central figure in the formation of a new social identity
that affirms yet chastens and transcends ethnic identity. The formation of this new identity
is a reflection of profound transformation (not just social recategorization), and is the
mechanism through which intergroup reconciliation occurs in Luke-Acts.29
Once again, the Spirit serves to affirm both continuity with Judaism and in-
clusion of new ethnicities in the church.
As we have seen, the horizontal dimension of Luke’s narrative superstructure
coheres in large measure because the Holy Spirit, a continuing character from
ancient Jewish scriptures onward, repeatedly signals divine authorization for
both continuity and discontinuity among the story’s major developmental
stages. Hence, the reader’s certitude rests on the conviction that from Moses
to Paul, God, through the Spirit, has planned and implemented the social and
religious evolution resulting in Christianity. But Luke also selects and adapts
certain scriptural ideas about the Spirit to structure his narrative world’s vertical
dimension. As carefully modulated by Luke, the Spirit bridges the space between
the human and the divine, between earth and heaven, between immanence
and transcendence. The God of Israel, who plans and acts to create a people,
cannot (or, can no longer for Luke) appear in “person” on the stage of history.
Therefore, God’s revelatory, salvific activities must be mediated through divine
manifestations or representations, all of which derive from Jewish scriptures:
the “word of God” (ῥῆμα θεοῦ) comes to John the Baptist, even as it came to his
prophetic predecessors (Luke 3:2); angels appear to humans with important an-
nouncements from God; sometimes the divine communicates through a dream;
and the scriptures themselves are the deposit of divinely-inspired oracles. But
Luke makes far more use of the Spirit than of any other divine manifestation,
for the Spirit provides a much more personal and direct means for God’s inter-
vention in human affairs. Thus, the Spirit expresses God’s dynamic presence
in the world, even as it preserves divine transcendence.30 Although the Spirit’s
activity can be manifested with accompanying material signs – fire, wind, dove –
the Spirit itself is not understood as an impersonal substance or cosmic force (as
29 A. Kuecker, The Spirit and the “Other”: Social Identity, Ethnicity and Intergroup Reconcili-
ation in Luke-Acts, LNTS 444 (London: Bloomsbury T&T Clark, 2011), 18.
30 F. Bovon, “L’importance des médiations dans le projet théologique de Luc,” NTS 21
(1974): 23–39, 31–39.
412 John A. Darr
in Hellenistic manticism and philosophy). Rather, Holy Spirit (a term not found
outside Jewish and Christian sources of the time) is, in Luke, the Spirit of the cre-
ator God who interacts with creation, but is distinguished from it. The personal
God of scripture always controls the Spirit in Luke-Acts. (As exalted Lord, Jesus
is no exception to this rule.) On the earthly side, Luke follows the scriptures in
describing the Spirit as falling upon, coming upon, filling, and directing chosen
human agents. In contrast to some scripture, however, Luke does not depict the
Spirit as engendering wisdom within persons. Nor does Luke follow Paul in
understanding the Spirit as an indwelling power that regenerates individuals, or
reconciles one to God, or fosters ethical development (the “fruits of the Spirit”).
Although it may inspire courage and joy, the Spirit is not, for Luke, the source of
an individual’s spiritual formation. It is, rather, the divine force that authorizes,
empowers, and develops the believing community.
E. Luke-Acts and Collected Intellectual Biography
Near the beginning of an important essay on the genre of Acts, Loveday Al-
exander rightly opines that “ancient biography is a notoriously confusing field
to understand”; she goes on to suggest (correctly, once again) that “there is a lot
to be said for limiting our explorations to an area which may be loosely defined
as ‘intellectual biography,’ i. e., biography of individuals distinguished for their
prowess in the intellectual field.”31 I will take Alexander’s lead and quickly
narrow the focus of my inquiry to the genre of collected intellectual biography.
Greco-Roman readers were familiar with biography as a literary type. Though
it mixed and morphed easily with various kinds of historiography, biography
focused more consistently on the individual and on personal data like birth,
nationality, education, teacher, career, notable deeds, character (virtues), and
death.32 Furthermore, biography framed historical events “within the bound-
aries of an individual’s life and his role within said events,” rather than the re-
verse.33
Individual (free standing) biographies were probably not the norm, however,
as Greco-Roman authors and readers seem to have preferred writing and read-
31 “Acts and Ancient Intellectual Biography,” in The Book of Acts in Its First Century Setting,
vol. 1: The Book of Acts in Its Ancient Literary Setting, ed. B. W. Winter and A. D. Clarke (Grand
Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1993), 31–63, 34. A full-scale review of all the types and sub-types of
Greco-Roman biography, along with discussions of their relationships to myriad kinds of his-
toriography and to Luke-Acts is far beyond the scope of the present essay. In any event, my
survey of the voluminous scholarship on Luke-Acts and ancient biography leads me to confirm
Alexander’s instincts: intellectual biography is the most suggestive biographical sub-type for
comparison with the Lukan writings.
32 Adams, Acts and Collected Biography, 251; Burridge, What Are the Gospels?, 200–2.
33 Adams, Acts and Collected Biography, 251.
ing about multiple persons jointly in biographical collections.34 Perhaps the best
known example of collected biography is Plutarch’s Parallel Lives. Collected
intellectual biography was a sub-type of collected biography that focused on the
πεπαιδευμένοι, especially philosophers and sophists. Prominent examples of
collected intellectual biography include: Diogenes Laertius’s Lives of Eminent
Philosphers; Philostratus’s Lives of the Sophists; and Eunapius’s Lives of the
Philosophers and Sophists.35 Often these philosophical bioi were concerned with
establishing the origins and distinctive teachings of particular sects or schools.
Substantial biographical treatments of the originating teacher of a school were
accompanied (in various arrangements) by shorter biographical takes on his
students and their accomplishments, with an emphasis on how the students
emulated the founding teacher in deeds and words.36 The concatenation of
interrelated and overlapping biographies cohered in readers’ minds to form an
implicit group history, a “developmental arc of the specific school or tradition in
focus.”37 Collected intellectual biography was thus a kind of historiography, and
the form could flex easily to include more prose narrative and broader historical
framing (beyond the specifically biographical), as is the case in Luke-Acts.38 It
could also incorporate other features more often associated with Hellenistic his-
toriography such as a reference to the author’s sources (see the Gospel preface)
and a heavy reliance on speeches, as in Acts.
As noted earlier, determination of a work’s genre(s) requires attention to more
than just subject matter and formal features. The interrelated factors of audience
and purpose must also be taken into account. It is safe to say that collected
intellectual biography was not meant to satisfy general historical curiosity, or to
entertain the masses. Rather, it was designed to define, shape, and confirm group
identity for members or would-be members of philosophical schools. Arthur
P. Urbano argues persuasively that philosophical bioi constituted:
an “arena” or locus of debate and negotiation, in a competition among parties of the
Greek-speaking educated elite, the pepaideumenoi. The production, circulation, and
34 Adams observes, “the majority of extant biographies are not of individual people but
consist of multiple human subjects” (Acts and Collected Biography, 114; also 115, 251–52).
35 For comprehensive lists of collected biographies (or references to them) from the
5th c. BCE through the 6th c. CE, see Adams, Acts and Collected Biography, 112–13.
36 Viewing Luke-Acts through the prism of collected intellectual biography reveals the Gos-
pel as a biography of Jesus (the group’s teacher-founder) and Acts as a set of accounts about how
his disciples emulated his exploits and teachings after his departure. C. H. Talbert originated
this take on the genre of Luke-Acts and has argued extensively for it in Literary Patterns, Theo-
logical Themes, and the Genre of Luke-Acts, SBLMS 20 (Missoula, MT: Scholars Press, 1974);
and idem and P. Stepp, “Succession in Luke-Acts and in the Lukan Milieu,” in C. H. Talbert,
Reading Luke-Acts in Its Mediterranean Milieu, NovTSup 107 [Leiden: Brill, 2003], 19–55).
38 In light of collected intellectual biography’s flexibility and inherent historical functional-
ity, it is fruitless to enter into a discussion about whether Luke-Acts is biographically modified
historiography or historiographically modified biography.
414 John A. Darr
consumption of biographical literature constituted one strategy in this competition. The

bios, then, served in its conventional literary and rhetorical aspects as a practical, com-
petitive tool in the competition. Biography could be used to define, delimit, and promote
the characteristics of the philosophical life. As a pedagogical tool, biographies presented
models for imitation. Authors enlisted noble figures of the recent and distant past, praising
them as founders, exemplars, and transmitters of knowledge and virtue.39
The philosophical bioi were instruments of identity construction among

intellectuals; they could be wielded pedagogically, apologetically, and even
polemically (against other groups of πεπαιδευμένοι). When arranged as succes-
sion narratives, philosophical bioi demarcated group boundaries, established
authority structures, and defined and safeguarded orthodoxy.40 As a kind of
academic pedigree, collected intellectual biography fostered certainty of identity
in its readers and was an ideal instrument for achieving Luke’s purpose as stated
in his preface.
Authorial readers would have recognized Luke’s Doppelwerk as an example
of collected intellectual biography and drawn upon that familiar genre as one of
two primary extratextual frameworks to aid in actualizing the text. Luke-Acts’
portrayal of a long succession of protagonists as philosophers, its Greco-Roman
rhetorical topoi, and a good bit of its moral teaching – among other features –
flag it as philosophical bios. Scholars have recognized many of these “external”
indicators of genre for some time now. What is new and exciting in genre
scholarship is a willingness to give more weight to audience and purpose in the
interpretive equation. We have only just begun to tap the considerable potential
of interpreting Luke-Acts as collected intellectual biography from a pragmatic
perspective – as literature designed to construct and maintain a reader’s iden-
tity within the Christian movement conceived as a distinctive, Greco-Roman
intellectual group. How, for example, might this new interpretive perspective
help us better understand Lukan pedagogy and boundary-drawing? In other
words, how does Luke inculcate παιδεία in readers; and how do they learn to
distinguish insiders from outsiders?41
39 A. P. Urbano, The Philosophical Life: Biography and the Crafting of Intellectual Identity
in Late Antiquity, Patristic Monograph Series 21 (Washington, DC: Catholic University of
America Press, 2013), 24. Although Urbano focuses primarily on late antiquity, I argue that
his insights also apply to the origins of the second sophistic movement in the late first century,
and to Luke-Acts, which appeared within that intellectual milieu. For more on philosophical
bioi as teaching tools and arenas of identity construction, see M. Bonazzi and S. Schorn, eds.,
Bios Philosophos: Philosophy in Ancient Greek Biography, Hellenistic and Roman Philosophy 4
(Turnhout: Brepols, 2016).
40 Talbert and Stepp (“Succession in Luke-Acts”) have made the most forceful arguments
for understanding Luke-Acts as a succession narrative structured to safeguard what Luke saw as
Christian orthodoxy.
41 For initial forays into these areas, see Darr, “Narrative Therapy,” and “Murmuring
Sophists.”
F. Compatibility, Intertextuality

and the Hybridity of Genres
A few words on the compatibility and blending of scriptural historiography

and collected intellectual biography are in order at this point. How and why
did Luke blend these literary patterns? Sean Adams observes: “generic hybridity
and adaptation are predicated on generic relatedness and compatibility. Often
initiated through cultural interaction and authorial creativity, the development
and blending of genres reshapes the landscape of generic boundaries. An author
may adapt (either intentionally or unintentionally) a genre in order to meet the
compositional needs of the moment, resulting in an original composition.”42
Gospel genre critics have largely acknowledged the blurriness of the line be-
tween biography and historiography, and the line between collected biography
and historiography appears even blurrier. As we have seen, there is even greater
compatibility of subject, audience, and purpose between collected intellectual
biography and scriptural historiography. Both trace a group’s development by
focusing on the lives of a series of influential leaders who serve as exempla and
deliver, maintain, and defend foundational teachings. Moreover, both “scaffolds”
are designed to delineate group identity and inculcate essential group values.
Thus, they appear as obvious candidates for mixing and matching. Indeed, Luke
was not the only – or even the first – author to recognize their compatibility
and the rhetorical potential of linking them. But Luke-Acts represents the most
thorough early Christian blending of Jewish scriptural historiography and
Greco-Roman collected intellectual biography. What was the advantage to this
linkage? The answer closest to hand is that Luke needed to reach a culturally
complex target audience. His ideal reader was a highly Hellenized Christian
Jew, competent in Jewish scripture and a wide range of Greco-Roman literary
genres, and familiar with basic facts about the Christian movement. On either
side of this ideal target, however, lay a range of readers with varying levels of
competence. Combining compatible literary patterns from Jewish and Greco-
Roman cultural spheres allowed Luke to reach a broader audience that reflected
the diversity in Christianity at his time. There may also have been an apologetic
motive for hybridizing a Jewish scriptural model with the philosophical bioi
genre: the former signals the Christian movement’s solid connection to ancient
Israelite roots; and the latter indicates the group’s contemporary location and
relevance within the dominant Greco-Roman culture.43

43 Bale, Genre and Narrative Coherence, 89–93.
416 John A. Darr
G. Conclusion:
Christian Identity Formation Through Reading
For Luke’s authorial audience, reading Luke-Acts was an exercise in identity

formation, a process which, in that cultural milieu, focused not on the individu-
al’s idiosyncratic experience or psychological development, but on the person’s
relationship to the group. More specifically, Luke-Acts functioned as a foun-
dation narrative, inculcating in readers “certainty” about their group identity,
that is, about the nature, origins, development, and teachings of the Christian
movement. Luke’s (schematic) text prompted readers early and often to actualize
it (construct it as a whole literary work) with reference to two types of foun-
dation narrative: (1) Jewish scriptural historiography recounting the origins and
formation of the people of Israel; and (2) Greco-Roman collected intellectual
biography, a genre for recounting the origins of philosophical schools. To be
sure, the Lukan writings are literarily capacious and somewhat protean; readers
drew on many genres and intertextual linkages to negotiate discrete aspects of
the text. But the primary extratextual scaffolding for constructing Luke-Acts as
a complete literary work consisted of scriptural history and collected biography.
In the process of building the literary work from text and extratext, the identity
of Luke’s authorial reader was also being “built.” Reading Luke-Acts encour-
aged and enabled readers to integrate and grow into a dual identity. They were
to become members of God’s covenanted people and disciples in a venerable
philosophical school, or, to mix Luke’s models thoroughly, they were to live as a
people of παιδεία and as a school of Spirit-inspired prophets.
Intertextual Transformations of Jesus
John as Mnemomyth
Thomas R. Hatina
The Fourth Gospel presents us with a longstanding hermeneutical problem

which has been well articulated by John A. T. Robinson and more recently by
Tom Thatcher.1 It is the problem of its relationship to the actual past of Jesus
(the so-called “historical Jesus”).2 The Fourth Gospel explicitly generates the
predicament. On the one hand, the evangelist claims that his account is the
testimony of a person who had direct contact with Jesus along with a pastiche
of witnesses (e. g., 19:35; 21:24); yet on the other hand, he presents us with
explicit hermeneutical keys that inform the reader about the filters through
which the identity of Jesus was shaped, resulting in one of the most Chris-
tologically advanced portrayals in the NT. These keys include post-resurrection
experiences, the role of the parakletos, and the scriptures – the last of which
is of particular interest here (e. g., 2:22; 5:39; 12:16; 14:15–26). This inherent
tension between the actual past of Jesus and present interpretation of him, or the
paradox between the “real” and the “discourse,” in the Fourth Gospel has often
led to subtle and implicit assumptions about genre.3 The more John is viewed
as preserving content from the actual past, the more it is considered to be a bios
(ancient biography) or some subset of a historical characterization. Conversely,
the obfuscation of that material in light of a thick hermeneutical lens tends to
yield more abstract, fictive, and blended views of genre.
1 J. A. T. Robinson, The Priority of John, ed. J. F. Coakley (London: SCM Press, 1985), 342.
According to T. Thatcher, John’s reference to direct testimony is presented “more forcefully
than any other ancient author” (“Introduction: The John, Jesus, and History Project,” in John,
Jesus, and History, vol. 1: Critical Appraisals of Critical Views, ed. P. N. Anderson, F. Just, and
T. Thatcher, SymS 44 [Atlanta: SBL, 2007], 9–12, 10).
2 T. Thatcher, “Aspects of Historicity in the Fourth Gospel: Phase Two of the John, Jesus,
and History Project,” in John, Jesus, and History, vol. 2: Aspects of Historicity in the Fourth
Gospel, ed. P. N. Anderson, F. Just, and T. Thatcher, ECL 2, SymS 44 (Atlanta: SBL, 2009), 1–6, 2.
As an apt methodological prelude to this essay, see R. Kysar, “The Dehistoricizing of the Gospel
of John,” in ibid., 75–101.
3 I avoid the term “historical Jesus” because it can easily cloud any discussion where “his-
tory” is a hermeneutical category that is distinguished from the actual past, which is inacces-
sible. We are still in an academic context where some biblical scholars equate the “historical
Jesus” with the Jesus of the actual past.
418 Thomas R. Hatina
In this paper, I argue that the resolution of the problem, or at least part of
it, lies in understanding how the identity of Jesus is constructed through the
process of social commemoration and ideological mythmaking within the
medium of narrative. My main claim is that intertextual transformations of Jesus,
which are the product of these processes of reception, challenge recent proposals
that the Fourth Gospel preserves continuities between the actual past and the
present, and by extension challenge inferences that the Fourth Gospel is a bios.
As a springboard, I begin by drawing attention to (assumed) processes of trans-
mission in recent re-evaluations of the Fourth Gospel as a source that can lead us
to the Jesus of the past (namely the late 20s of Palestine). Next, I explain the theo-
retical basis for conceiving the process of identity construction within the her-
meneutical framework of social memory theory and ideological mythmaking.
Finally, I offer insights on how this reception process impinges on genre.
A. The Fourth Gospel and Its Relation to the

Actual Past: Priorities in Tension
For much of the history of the Jesus quest, scholars have been skeptical about
the value of the Fourth Gospel as a potential source for reconstructing Jesus.
For many, the dehistoricizing of John was rooted in comparisons with the other
canonical Gospels within a hermeneutic that separated tradition from recep-
tion/memory, which has been symptomatic of historical criticism. Since its data
was viewed as not aligning with the Synoptic Gospels, John has not been sub-
jected to the primary tools for isolating Jesus traditions, namely form criticism,
redaction criticism, and the “criteria of authenticity.” This has been expressed
by both historical Jesus and Johannine scholars. Jesus scholars who paid more
attention to John, particularly represented by the Jesus Seminar, reasoned that
since John’s portrait of Jesus is so different from the Synoptics, both cannot be
accurate.4 Apart from a few notable exceptions,5 the Third Quest has also largely
ignored John as a potential source. The same sentiments have been generally
affirmed in many commentaries that we might today call twentieth-century clas-
sics in Johannine studies, such as those by Barrett, Schnackenburg, Bultmann,
Brown, Loisy, and Lagrange. Thus, instead of appealing to John as a source for
reconstructing the actual past of Jesus, the focus has generally been on the re-
construction of the Johannine community. In more recent studies of John, the
4 R. W. Funk, R. W. Hoover, and the Jesus Seminar, The Five Gospels: The Search for the
Authentic Words of Jesus (New York: Macmillan, 1993), 10.
5 E. g., J. P. Meier, A Marginal Jew: Rethinking the Historical Jesus, vol. 1: The Roots of the
Problem and the Person, ABRL (New York: Doubleday, 1991), 41–55; P. Fredriksen, Jesus of
Nazareth, King of the Jews: A Jewish Life and the Emergence of Christianity (New York: Knopf,
1999).
Intertextual Transformations of Jesus 419
movements toward literary approaches have had little or no concern for the
Gospel’s historical accuracy.6
1. Prioritizations of the Actual Past

In the last two decades, however, we have seen a significant shift in evaluations
of John’s historiography that have challenged traditional assumptions and im-
plicitly impinged on the Gospel’s genre, which has taken on a more historical
nuance. In 2010, James H. Charlesworth even pronounced that since John is
now given more significance for historical Jesus research, we are in the midst of
a “paradigm shift.”7 Credit for the shift is largely due to the insights from SBL’s
John, Jesus, and History Group, which to date has disseminated its findings in
three volumes, with more to come.8 At the risk of oversimplification, the debate
over John’s historicity stemming from these volumes can be divided into two
general perspectives. On the one side are those who emphasize the historical
value of John as a source that can lead us to the actual past or contextual realities
of Jesus, thus taking seriously the “truth” of the internal testimonial claims. On
the other side are those who emphasize the highly interpretive character of the
Fourth Gospel, which minimizes or eliminates its historical value, thus taking
seriously the Gospel’s explicit hermeneutical keys. The disagreements today are
more nuanced than some of the traditional divisions that were rooted in the
dialectic of history and theology. While both groups have conveyed broad dif-
ferences in their methods and conclusions, they have often left undeveloped the
social process(es) of transmission from the actual past of Jesus to the present of
the Fourth Gospel. In briefly surveying how transmission has been both under-
stood and omitted, I want to create space for proposing social memory theory
coupled with ideological mythmaking as a helpful way of understanding the
process of transmission and its potential impact on genre.
I begin this brief survey with those who have argued that John is more histori-
cally significant than has often been assumed. One of the main voices advancing
this position is Paul N. Anderson, who has rightly exposed past unreflective as-
sumptions about both the dehistoricizing of John and the historicizing of the
Synoptics. While Anderson rightly acknowledges that Jesus’s portrayal involves
subjectivity, and in particular must be viewed in light of the resurrection, John’s
theological themes and a perspective that views the present as a filter for the past
(e. g., 2:22; 12:16), he nevertheless challenges the idea that interpretation eclipses
6 For a fuller summary of 20th-c. scholarship, see F. J. Moloney, “The Fourth Gospel and
the Jesus of History,” NTS 46 (2000): 42–58, which served as an influential turning point in the
discussion.
7 “The Historical Jesus in the Fourth Gospel: A Paradigm Shift?” JSHJ 8 (2010): 3–46.
8 The first two volumes (see nn. 1–2 above) are of particular importance in this paper since
they address hermeneutical and methodological issues concerning the historical value of John.
“originitive history” or “historical origination.”9 The implication is that the trans-

formation of Jesus’s identity in the Fourth Gospel is minimal and retrievable.
For evidence of John’s preservation of the past, Anderson offers several detailed
arguments. First, one of the most common arguments is based on Synoptic omis-
sions. Assuming that John was familiar with at least some parts of Mark, his
omissions are viewed as intentional compliments, augments or corrections using
more accurate material. After all, the evangelist was aware of “other signs not
written in this book” (21:25). Second, the omission of Markan material that has
often been deemed as early, such as agrarian metaphors in terse, aphoristic forms,
is claimed to be present in long wisdom discourses (e. g., John 4, 12). Third, it is
argued that theologically significant material, such as the “I am” metaphors, is not
unique as it reflects earlier Synoptic tradition in a way that may get at the heart
of what Jesus actually taught.10 Fourth, John’s use of Semitic language, references
to Jewish rituals, feasts, chronology, familiarity with exegetical traditions and
accurate representations of the geography and topography of Palestine, all of
which are unparalleled in the Synoptics, are viewed as being historically superior
to the Synoptics.11 Finally, other scholars have argued that the historical reliability
of John is tied to its eyewitness claim that goes back to the Apostle, despite the
possible layers in the compositional development.12
Much can be said in response to proposals for continuity between the actual
past of Jesus and the present of the Fourth Gospel not only in relation to those
that are overt, but also in relation to those that advocate for a largely dehistor-
icized Gospel while also upholding a degree of continuity in an albeit nebulous
manner.13 The underlying difficulty is that there is no theory of transmission or
9 E. g., P. N. Anderson, “Why This Study is Needed and Why It Is Needed Now,” in idem,
Just, and Thatcher, Critical Appraisals, 13–70, 29, 36; P. N. Anderson, “Introduction to Part 1:
Aspects of Historicity in John 1–4,” in idem, Just, and Thatcher, Aspects of Historicity, 9–14,
9–10. See also the arguments for traces of early oral traditions in the Fourth Gospel in P. N.
Anderson, Navigating the Living Waters of the Gospel of John: On Wading with Children and
Swimming with Elephants, Pendle Hill Pamphlet 352 (Wallingford, PA: Pendle Hill, 2002),
24–26, 43–48.
10 For some who advocate John’s independence, the theological and narrative interests that
differ from the Synoptics indicates non-historical material, e. g., D. M. Smith, John Among the
Gospels, 2nd ed. (Columbia, SC: University of South Carolina Press, 2001), 234–35.
11 Anderson, “Why This Study is Needed,” 13–36. Many scholars who view John as a viable
source seize on one or several of these aspects. See, for example, Moloney, “Fourth Gospel and
the Jesus of History,” 44; D. M. Smith, “John: A Source for Jesus Research?” in Anderson, Just,
and Thatcher, Critical Appraisals, 165–78; B. D. Johnson, “The Jewish Feasts and Questions of
Historicity in John 5–12,” in Anderson, Just, and Thatcher, Aspects of Historicity, 117–29; C. A.
Evans, “Feeding the Five Thousand and the Eucharist,” in ibid., 131–38.
12 E. g., C. L. Blomberg, “The Historical Reliability of John: Rushing in Where Angels Fear
to Tread?,” in Jesus in Johannine Tradition, ed. R. T. Fortna and T. Thatcher (Louisville, KY:
Westminster John Knox, 2001), 71–82; C. S. Keener, The Gospel of John: A Commentary, 2 vols.
(Peabody, MA: Hendrickson, 2003), 1:11–12; D. A. Carson, “The Challenge of the Balkaniza-
tion of Johannine Studies,” in Anderson, Just, and Thatcher, Critical Appraisals, 133–59.
13 C. R. Koester, Symbolism in the Fourth Gospel: Meaning, Mystery, Community, 2nd ed.
reception that would explain the process of accurate preservations of the past.
In short, it creates two problems: an epistemological one and an hermeneutical
one. Epistemologically, we are left with the paucity of what constitutes as ev-
idence when determining accurate preservations of the past. Hermeneutically,
while texts are viewed as products of interpretations, they are somehow still
viewed as archives through which one can access the actual past, particularly
the identity of Jesus.14 To clarify, the issue is not whether or not John contains
material that may be rooted in the actual past of Jesus’s life. Clearly the Fourth
Gospel contains facts or data points. There was a Jesus, John the Baptist, Phari-
sees, and no doubt they interacted. Jesus was Jewish, used scripture, knew ethnic
customs, had followers, was crucified by the Romans, and so on. Rather the issue
is that we cannot determine the preservation of their meanings given that data
points are always embedded in traditions, memories, and interpretations that
are all integrated within webs of significance. From a mnemonic perspective, the
preserved data points are memory as ars, which refers to storage or recitation
(Erinnerung). This differs radically from my approach to memory as vis, which
refers to involuntary acts of internalization and identity construction (Gedächt-
nis) where remembering and forgetting are inextricably bound.15 From a literary
perspective, new meanings applied to data points are considered “fictions” in the
sense that they are arranged, expanded, and further interpreted within narrative
space and time, all the while creating an epistemological barrier for recovering
the actual past.16 Even if we attribute eyewitness influence at the earliest stage of
the compositional history, as some insist, this may lead us to the plausibility of
some data points, but it does not address the problem of reception and continu-
ity of meaning.17 In the end, the recovery of unmediated data points are devoid
of meanings and require lines of connectivity which are necessarily subjective.
Several examples convey both of these problems. First, the evangelist’s
redactions of Mark may have been intended to fill in or augment or even correct
(Minneapolis: Fortress, 2003).

14 E. g., Keener, Gospel of John, 1:51.
15 A. Assmann, Cultural Memory and Western Civilization: Functions, Media, Archives
(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2011), 19–20.
16 A. Assmann, Die Legitimität der Fiktion: Ein Beitrag zur Geschichte der literarischen
Kommunikation, Theorie und Geschichte der Literatur und der schönen Künste 55 (Munich:
Fink, 1980), 14.
17 On the problem of eyewitness testimony, see A. T. Lincoln, “The Beloved Disciple as
Eyewitness and the Fourth Gospel as Witness,” JSNT 85 (2002): 3–26; Kysar, “Dehistoricizing
of the Gospel of John,” 77–80; J. Painter, “Memory Holds the Key: The Transformation of Mem-
ory in the Interface of History and Theology in John,” in Anderson, Just, and Thatcher, Critical
Appraisals, 229–45; Z. A. Crook, “Memory and the Historical Jesus,” BTB 42 (2012): 196–203.
Proponents of a more historicized Fourth Gospel tend to operate with an unresolved tension.
On the one hand, it is claimed that the evangelist used traditions that stem from eyewitness
testimony, but on the other hand it is claimed that the traditions are so well concealed within
the fabric of the narrative that they are concealed.
the material, but it may or may not have been for purposes of preserving the
past. Second, while John may preserve some terse aphorism of Jesus, they are
not unmediated. Their “new” location in long discourses suggests that whatever
original meaning they may have had was compromised in the reception process.
Even if the aphorisms are early, we are still in an epistemological pickle since we
cannot know the content and context of the aphorisms, despite the stability of
ipsissima structura in oral performances.18 Since the reception process is always
pressured by new meanings in the present, we cannot presuppose a linear trans-
ference of content and meaning. And third, why must all coherences with Jewish
places, customs, typologies, symbols, and exegetical traditions that had currency
in the Palestine of the 20s CE point necessarily prior to the narrative? The
evangelist may have been very familiar with Jewish traditions and used them as
frames in his identity construction of Jesus. We cannot simply assume that they
are forensic anecdotes to underscore historical reliability. Again, even if we grant
the preservation of select data points, such as Jesus engaging in foot washing,
there is no way of knowing that their “original” meanings were preserved.19 In
the end, the epistemological and hermeneutical problems leave us echoing Bult-
mann’s warning – though for more nuanced reasons – that the Fourth Gospel
may preserve certain facts from Jesus’s day and about Jesus, but in them we do
not meet the historical Jesus.20
2. Prioritizations of the Present

Recent studies that have emphasized the highly interpretive character of the
Fourth Gospel over and against its potential value for reconstructing the actual
past of Jesus have often pointed to postmodernist or “perspectival” approaches to
history which have pointed to the epistemological and ontological problems as-
sociated with modernist approaches that assume fixed realities behind texts and
our ability to find them.21 In many postmodernist approaches, history is viewed
as a narration about the past which is affected by numerous factors, not least of
which is the author’s ideology. While the historian conveys truth of the past (as
18 J. D. Crossan, In Fragments: The Aphorisms of Jesus (San Francisco: Harper & Row, 1983),
37; W. H. Kelber, “The Generative Force of Memory: Early Christian Traditions as Processes of
Remembering,” BTB 36 (2006): 15–22.
19 J. Clark-Soles, “John 13: Of Footwashing and History,” in Anderson, Just, and Thatcher,
Aspects of Historicity, 255–69.
20 R. Bultmann, “Johannesevangelium,” RGG3 3 (1959): 840–50, 841–42.
21 See the critique of modernist approaches (e. g., by R. Bultmann, E. Käsemann, and
G. Theissen) which are committed to such underlying realities in B. C. Lategan, “History and
Reality in the Interpretation of Biblical Texts,” in Konstruktion von Wirklichkeit: Beiträge
aus geschichtstheoretischer, philosophischer und theologischer Perspektive, ed. J. Schröter and
A. Eddelbüttel, Theologische Bibliothek Töpelmann 127 (Berlin: De Gruyter, 2004), 135–52;
B. C. Lategan, “Questing or Sense-Making? Some Thoughts on the Nature of Historiography,”
BibInt 11 (2003): 588–601.
s/he sees it) through the medium of narrative, the actual past is considered to be
inaccessible. Since the actual past is always a received past within the matrix of
intertextuality, the historian’s primary referent, as Fred W. Burnett argues, is “not
an object known as the ‘past itself.’”22 While texts can absorb the past and reflect
it, they also construct it. Several Johannine scholars have seized upon several
nuances that stem from New Historicism, narratology, and most recently forays
into memory. What these approaches have in common is that they see John as
an interpretive text that veils the actual past instead of disclosing it.23 The focus
on the hermeneutic, however, does not eliminate the acknowledgement or even
search for intertexts that may have played a role in Jesus’s identity construction,
but it does obfuscate how they are understood. Nor does this focus reject the
possibility of preservations of the past at the level of memory as ars, but it does
reject the preservations of original meanings.24
B. Theorizing Intertextual Transformations of Jesus
1. Social Memory Theory and the Problem of Continuity

One of the most promising means of conceiving John’s relationship between
the past and present within a perspectival approach to history is social memory
theory. While much of its appropriation in biblical studies has critiqued main-
stream historical Jesus research, it is steadily gaining broader appeal. The Fourth
Gospel is particularly suited since it invites the reader to ponder the process of
remembrance in 2:17, 22; 12:16; 15:20; 16:4, 21, but not as accurate recollection
of the actual past. Instead, as John Painter argues, these references must be
22 “Historiography,” in Handbook of Postmodern Biblical Interpretation, ed. A. K. M. Adam
(St. Louis: Chalice, 2000), 106–12, 107. Shifts in the philosophy of history are represented in M.
de Certeau, The Writing of History, trans. Tom Conley (New York: Columbia University Press,
1988); P. Veyne, Writing History: Essays on Epistemology, trans. M. Moore-Rinvolucri (Middle-
town, CT: Wesleyan University Press, 1984); H. White, The Content of the Form: Narrative
Discourse and Historical Representation (Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press,
1987); idem., Figurative Realism: Studies in the Mimesis Effect (Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins
University Press, 1999); B. Stock, Listening for the Text: On the Uses of the Past (Baltimore, MD:
Johns Hopkins University Press, 1990); A. Cook, History/Writing: The Theory and Practice of
History in Antiquity and in Modern Times (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1988).
23 M. M. Thompson, “The ‘Spiritual Gospel’: How John the Theologian Writes History,” in
Anderson, Just, and Thatcher, Critical Appraisals, 103–7, 104; C. Conway, “New Historicism
and the Historical Jesus in John: Friends or Foes?,” in ibid., 199–215; R. Rodríguez, “What Is
History? Reading John 1 as Historical Representation,” JSHJ 16 (2018): 31–51.
24 This is comparable to earlier historical-critical approaches, such as that of R. Bultmann
who did not consider John as a source for the historical Jesus, but argued that it contains con-
tent that may go back to him, without which the theologizing could not occur (The Gospel of
John: A Commentary, ed. R. W. N. Hoare and J. K. Riches, trans. G. R. Beasley-Murray [Oxford:
Blackwell, 1971], 108). Bultmann, however, did not adequately wed processes of reception, as
they might be conceived within social memory theory, and tradition.
viewed from the perspective of post-resurrection, post-glorification, and Spirit-

inspired understanding, which address the present of the Fourth Gospel.25 To
this one can add the substantial role of scripture and its exegetical traditions.
Approaching such references within the theoretical bounds of social memory as
a hermeneutical lens guides our assumptions of what texts are and what we can
do with them when they depict the past.
Among Gospels scholars, appeals to remembrance have not always repre-
sented social memory theory as it has been understood in the social sciences,
and thus have tended to paint the wrong image in relation to the past. The
main problem is that some have treated it as a method, or a tool, to corroborate
either the reliability or unreliability of the past.26 Often such approaches as-
sume that at some point in the past there was an “uncorrupted” tradition or a
fixed reality behind the texts which was either altered or preserved via mem-
ory. In such cases, historical reconstruction that attempts to arrive at a single
meaning or data point is still viewed as the arbiter for determining accurate or
inaccurate transmission and reception.27 This division between tradition and
memory differs from postmodern approaches generally assumed among social
memory theorists who tend to collapse the two, advocating indeterminacy,
diversity, and subjectivity during the entire process of transmission and re-
ception – analogous to Jacques Derrida’s well-known dictum that texts do not
represent, but replace, the unattainable reality. So, instead of being guided by a
hermeneutic that tries to determine a fixed past reality, social memory theory is
guided by a cultural web of significance that shapes meaning at the level of the
text for the present.28
Building on the work of Maurice Halbwachs, contemporary theorists view
memory as a sign (or effect) of communal affiliation. Psychological memory
was not rejected by Halbwachs, but was viewed as an expression of the social
25 Painter (“Memory Holds the Key,” passim) counters J. D. G. Dunn’s claim that a stable
core of tradition tended to preserve a continuity between pre-Easter and post-Easter percep-
tions of Jesus. See also the critique of R. Bauckham’s “theologized history” in D. M. H. Tovey,
“On Not Unbinding the Lazarus Story: The Nexus of History and Theology in John 11:1–44,”
in Anderson, Just, and Thatcher, Aspects of Historicity, 213–23.
26 On the misrepresentation of social memory in Jesus studies, see A. Kirk, “Ehrman,
Bauckham and Bird on Memory and the Jesus Tradition,” JSHJ 15 (2017): 88–114.
27 E. g., Painter, “Memory Holds the Key,” 245. While Painter does a fine job in showing
how memory can serve as a hermeneutic, he surprisingly concludes his study with a nod toward
continuity between the actual past and the present. He writes, “From the perspective of the
resurrection faith, what John has done may be legitimate and even necessary, but the rigorous
quest for the historical Jesus remains crucial to ensure that the memory of faith does not run
wild and lose its roots in historical reality.”
28 E. g., C. Geertz, The Interpretation of Cultures: Selected Essays (New York: Basic Books,
1973), 5. Geertz’s semiotic concept of culture is an important foundation for understanding
social memory. Like M. Weber, he sees individuals suspended in webs of significance, which are
the complexities of the cultural context that shape meaning.
patterning of an individual’s social group. No memories were viewed as being

independent from social frameworks. Rather the frameworks were the means
through which the past was recreated in each epoch.29 One of Halbwachs’s
key observations on the function of memory within religious contexts is that
recollections of the past are assimilated within the frameworks of the present.
While the past is continually (re)shaped and (re)collected so as to have meaning
in the present, the present is continually informed and guided by the past,
especially if the tradition is older, is adopted by a large number of adherents,
and is widespread.30 While Halbwachs was not oblivious to the past as a prior
cause of memory, it was not what we might call “the actual past.” Halbwachs’s
ambivalence toward the past has proven to be unsatisfying to later social mem-
ory theorists because he lacked clarity on the relationship between history and
memory. While many theorists have attempted to resolve the ambiguity, such
as Jacques Le Goff and Pierre Nora, it has been the work of Jan Assmann and
Aleida Assmann in Germany and of Barry Schwartz in the United States which
has been most influential in biblical studies. All three have revived and modified
Halbwachs’s insights, but Schwartz has been the most influential in NT studies,
at least in the North American context. I generally rely on Schwartz’s approach,
though I find that the temporal frameworks proposed by the Asssmans are nec-
essary complements.
My complementary use of Schwartz and the Assmanns may at first appear
problematic for some biblical scholars appropriating social memory theory,
since the former is usually used in support of a continuity perspective and the
latter are used in support of a presentist perspective. While both presentists and
continuitists agree that memory is fluid, dynamic, creative, socially constructed
and not passively recalled, they differ on the accessibility of the past. The dif-
ference, unfortunately, has suffered from distortion in biblical studies and has
needlessly pitted an American approach against a European one. In my estima-
tion, both sides are much closer than they are presented since they emphasize
phenomena from different directions. The continuity perspective, which has also
been termed the traditionalist or essentialist approach, agrees with Halbwachs
that memory is always conditioned by the present, but it proposes that the past
must have an influence on the shaping of the present. Schwartz, who critiques
the politics of memory and extreme presentism that ignores the past, argues that
29 M. Halbwachs, On Collective Memory, ed. and trans. L. A. Coser (Chicago: University
of Chicago Press, 1992), 40, 43, 50–51. Although Halbwachs’s use of “collective memory” and
“social memory” at times overlaps, each conveys a distinct aspect. Collective memory refers
to a shared cultural past that individuals recall and constantly shape; whereas social memory
refers to the influence of the social framework on the individual’s memory. See S. Huebenthal,
“Social and Cultural Memory in Biblical Exegesis: The Quest for an Adequate Application,” in
Cultural Memory in Biblical Exegesis, ed. P. Carstens, T. B. Hasselbalch, and N. P. Lemche, PHSC
17 (Piscataway, NJ: Gorgias, 2012), 191–216.
30 Halbwachs, On Collective Memory, 183.
present memories are influenced by received traditions. While there is variance

in how the past is received, the past is still connected with the present.31 Yet, he
maintains the proviso that “[w]hile the object of commemoration is usually to be
found in the past, the issue which motivates its selection and shaping is always
to be found among the concerns of the present.”32 In his recent work on the
historical Jesus, Schwartz reaffirms that constructions of the past are not without
some form of a historical core.33
Schwartz has been influential for Jesus scholars because his continuity per-
spective provides a slight crack in the door for retrieving the actual past apart
from traditional “authenticity criteria.” The problem is that biblical scholars,
like Chris Keith and Jens Schröter, pry the door open further, arguing that
while the actual past is not recoverable, social memory theory can be used to
offer hypotheses on it. In the process, Keith for example, tends to (1) misrep-
resent presentism by appealing to its extremes as an undermining of historical
continuity, and (2) overcommits theorists like Schwartz to more continuity than
is warranted.34 Likewise, while I appreciate the caution expressed by Rafael
Rodríguez that the Johannine Jesus should not be severed from the so-called
“Jesus tradition,” it tends to overplay what Paul Connerton means by claiming
that absolute newness is inconceivable in transmission processes.35 Although
Schwartz is cautious in preserving a role for the past in the formation of group
memory, his general assessment of the goal of social memory affirms what the
31 Schwartz warns that a “[s]harp opposition between history and collective memory has
been our Achilles Heel, causing us to assert unwillingly, and often despite ourselves, that what
is not historical must be ‘invented’ or ‘constructed’ – which transforms collective memory into
a kind of cynical muckraking.” The quotation is taken from B. Schwartz’s personal correspon-
dence cited in J. K. Olick and J. Robbins, “Social Memory Studies: From ‘Collective Memory’
to the Historical Sociology of Mnemonic Practices,” Annual Review of Sociology 24 (1998):
105–40, 111.
32 B. Schwartz, “The Social Context of Commemoration,” Social Forces 61/2 (1982):
374–402, 395.
33 B. Schwartz, “Where There’s Smoke, There’s Fire: Memory and History,” in Memory and
Identity in Ancient Judaism and Early Christianity: A Conversation with Barry Schwartz, ed.
T. Thatcher, SemeiaSt 78 (Atlanta, SBL, 2014), 7–37, 22.
34 C. Keith, “Memory and Authenticity: Jesus Tradition and What Really Happened,”
ZNW 102 (2011): 155–77, 169; idem, “Social Memory Theory and Gospels Research: The First
Decade (Part One),” EC 6 (2015): 354–76, 363. In both he quotes B. Zelizer, “Reading the Past
against the Grain: The Shape of Memory Studies,” Critical Studies in Mass Communication 12/2
(1995): 214–39, esp. 227. An exaggerated form of distortion is more recently present in A. N.
Kirk, The Departure of an Apostle: Paul’s Death Anticipated and Remembered, WUNT 2/406
35 Rodríguez, “What is History,” 39–40; P. Connerton, How Societies Remember, Themes
in the Social Sciences (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1989), 6–13. Connerton’s
main point is that recollected knowledge of the past is conveyed and sustained by performances
like ritual, not a continuity of the past as narrated events or meanings. While he argues that
intelligibility of new experiences is always understood within inherited social frameworks, he
does not say that it somehow opens the door to reconstruct the past.
Assmanns claim from the presentist perspective. That is to say, the goal of social
memory is not about discovering the actual past but understanding why the
tradition developed in the manner that it did.
The presentist perspective, which has also been labeled constructionism or
revisionism, seizes on Halbwachs’s prioritization of the present in acts of remem-
brance and is thus much more skeptical about accurate retrievals of the past. Em-
phasizing studies on memory distortion, presentists argue that memory is always
constructed in the present through processes of creativity, fluidity, and utility
of commemoration.36 Michael Schudson provides a helpful summary of four
identifiable features or types of memory distortion: (1) “distanciation,” which
identifies time as a factor in the fading of details and intensity of memories; (2)
“instrumentalization,” which identifies how the reinterpretation of the past is
pressured by the present; (3) “narrativization,” which identify the location of the
memories within the constraints of storytelling; and (4) “conventionalization,”
which identifies the tendency of memories to conform to socio-typical experi-
ences.37 Anthony Le Donne insightfully adds “articulation” as a fifth feature,
which identifies the subjection of memories to language conventions.38
While the association of memory with the process of distortion is common-
place and necessary given that this is how identities are formed and maintained,
the intentionality of a distortion is more difficult to show since “invented
tradition can be successful only as long as it passes as tradition.”39 The challenge
that presentism poses for any historical undertaking is distinguishing between
veracity and distortion.40 In relation to the Gospels as memory texts, Zeba Crook
hits the nail on the head when he asks, “how is one to distinguish real memories
from manufactured memories, when those who hold both ‘memories’ might
36 E. g., J. Assmann, “Ancient Egyptian Antijudaism: A Case of Distorted Memory,” in Mem-

ory Distortion: How Minds, Brains, and Societies Reconstruct the Past, ed. D. L. Schacter (Cam-
bridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1995), 365–78; P. Burke, “History as Social Memory,” in
Memory: History, Culture, and the Mind, ed. T. Butler, Wolfson College Lectures 1988 (Oxford:
Blackwell, 1989), 97–114; J. Fentress and C. Wickham, Social Memory, New Perspectives on
the Past (Oxford: Blackwell, 1992); M. Kammen, “Some Patterns and Meanings of Memory
Distortion in American History,” in Schacter, Memory Distortion, 329–45; D. Lowenthal, The
Past Is a Foreign Country (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1985); M. Schudson,
“Dynamics of Distortion in Collective Memory,” in Schacter, Memory Distortion, 346–64;
Y. Zerubavel, Recovered Roots: Collective Memory and the Making of Israeli National Tradition
(Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1995); E. Hobsbawm and T. Ranger, eds., The Invention
of Tradition (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1983).
37 Schudson, “Dynamics of Distortion,” 348. On memory distortion through group self-
inflation, see R. F. Baumeister and S. Hastings, “Distortions of Collective Memory: How Groups
Flatter and Deceive Themselves,” in Collective Memory of Political Events: Social Psychological
Perspectives, ed. J. W. Pennebaker, D. Paez, and B. Rimé (Mahwah, NJ: Erlbaum, 1997), 277–93.
38 A. Le Donne, The Historiographical Jesus: Memory, Typology, and the Son of David
(Waco, TX: Baylor University Press, 2009), 52.
39 Zerubavel, Recovered Roots, 232.
40 Kammen, “Some Patterns and Meanings,” 341.
not be able to recognize the difference between them?”41 Most presentists still
maintain a theoretical influence of past memories on present ones, but since
the transmission processes are not linear or consistent, reconstructions are
epistemologically problematic. Jan Assmann, for example, conveys the relation-
ship in his discussion of “mnemohistory” which distinguishes the actual past
from the remembered past. He writes: “Unlike history proper, mnemohistory
is concerned not with the past as such, but only the past as it is remembered. It
surveys the story-lines of tradition, the webs of intertextuality, the diachronic
continuities and discontinuities of reading the past.” Mnemohistory’s aim, then,
he says, “is not to ascertain the possible truth of traditions.”42 Applying Ass-
mann’s mnemohistory to Gospel studies, Werner Kelber concludes:
Once we realize the operating force of memory, we can no longer reconstruct tradition on
the basis of a secure place, immune to temporality, in the life of Jesus or in his receptionist
history. Nor can one imagine tradition as an assembly-line production carrying inert
items of information to be collected and objectively preserved for posterity.43
In response to continuitist Gospel scholars like Keith, who view the continuity of
tradition like sedimentary layers in the earth and argue that we need to get back
through the text and not behind it,44 Kelber further argues that this is implausible
“because it rests on a clearly imaginable yet unrealistic developmental model ….
It is frequently possible to observe a text negotiating the past in terms of creative
rememorizations, but rarely, if at all, in terms of placing layer upon layer, or
shifting from simplicity to complexity.”45
The relationship between the past and present, which is of particular impor-
tance for understanding intertextual transformation of Jesus in the Fourth Gos-
pel, is explained by Schwartz as “keying.” In his words, “Keying defines social
memory’s function, matching the past and present as (1) a model of society,
reflecting its needs, interests, fears, and aspirations; (2) a model for society, a
template for thought, sentiment, morality, and conduct; and (3) a frame within
which people find meaning for their experience.”46 Keying in the Fourth Gospel
occurs within two temporal frameworks, though Schwartz does not present it
in this way. The work of Jan and Aleida Assmann can help us to distinguish the
act of “keying” over the short term and the long term. In a recent article, San-
41 Z. A. Crook, “Collective Memory Distortion and the Quest for the Historical Jesus,” JSHJ
11 (2013): 53–76, 66. See also his “Matthew, Memory Theory and the New No Quest,” HTS
Teologiese Studies 70/1 (2014): 1–11.
42 J. Assmann, Moses the Egyptian: The Memory of Egypt in Western Monotheism (Cam-
bridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1997), 8–9.
43 W. H. Kelber, “The Works of Memory: Christian Origins as Mnemohistory,” in idem,
Imprints, Voiceprints, and Footprints of Memory: Collected Essays of Werner H. Kelber, RBS 74
(Atlanta: SBL Press, 2013), 265–96, 283.
44 Keith, “Memory and Authenticity,” 155–77.
45 Kelber, “Works of Memory,” 283.
46 Schwartz, “Where There’s Smoke, There’s Fire,” 16.
dra Huebenthal has appropriated the Assmanns’ distinction between collective

memory and cultural memory by drawing attention to their respective temporal
frameworks which include gaps or temporal partitions that divide generations.47
Within this model, the process of collective remembrance (the short-term key-
ing process) is formed over two generations, each lasting 30–50 years. If the next
generation appropriates the remembrance, usually after the passing of the first
generation, it does so in different times and different contexts, facing entirely
different issues. Within this framework, if John is finalized at the close of the first
century, we can situate its appropriation of the Synoptic tradition (be it one or all
three of the Gospels) or its prior expression. The point is that the Fourth Gospel’s
frame of reference is not the actual past, but receptions that are represented in
the Synoptic tradition, yet despite their stable essence given their connection
to a perceived reality, their reception is nevertheless pliable and subject to
selection and change in the service of the present, often within socially imposed
constraints apart from individual ideological interests. Unlike the orthonymous
letters of Paul, which refer back to the original followers of Jesus and the event
of Easter in a more experiential way, the Fourth Gospel and pseudepigraphal
letters of the second generation refer back to the perceptions of reality in the first
generation. It is generally agreed that the second generation marked a necessary
transition that led to substantial shifts in early Christian thought and structure.
After the death of the original followers of Jesus in the early 60s CE (namely
James, Peter, and Paul), which marks a generational gap, the continuation of the
emerging religion required answers to new questions in a way that maintained
legitimacy by means of a continuity with the authoritative voices of the past, one
of which may well be represented by the character of the Beloved Disciple.48 At
this stage, remembrance is much more pliable and constructive in the shaping
of potential frames of identity formation. Prevailing iconic mental images (such
as receptions of the resurrected Jesus) appear to override temporal factors such
as the truth of their origins, which results in reducing events to mythical arche-
types that primarily function to persuade so as to control the future. Though, it
is not yet standardized or institutionally determined at the same level as cultural
memory.
47 S. Huebenthal, “‘Frozen Moments’ – Early Christianity through the Lens of Social Mem-
ory Theory,” in Memory and Memories in Early Christianity: Proceedings of the International
Conference Held at the Universities of Geneva and Lausanne (June 2–3, 2016), ed. S. Butticaz and
E. Norelli, WUNT 398 (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2018), 17–44.
48 For purposes of comparison, Paul’s iconic image, so to speak, is Easter, which is the
crisis impetus that initiates the Christian movement and can also be understood as a kind of
generational gap within Paul’s life. Whereas for the author of James, it is the death of the leaders
of the centralized authority of the Jerusalem church, especially (the historical) James. See T. R.
Hatina, “Social Memory Theory and Competing Identity Constructions: The Function of
Genesis 15:6 in Romans and James,” in 500 Jahre der Reformation in der Slowakei, ed. M. Nicak
and M. Tamcke (Münster: Lit Verlag, [forthcoming]), 35–56.
Within the temporal framework of cultural memory, which expresses long-

term keying, group remembrances are framed within a larger cultural system or
web of significance that shapes identity. Schwartz argues that this is frequently
observed among the evangelists’ use of scripture. He writes, “the Gospels key the
activities and fate of Jesus to statements in the Hebrew Scriptures an estimated
three hundred times, which affirms both the Gospel writers’ mastery of Scripture
and their listeners’ identification with the history the sacred texts describe.”49 Jan
Assmann’s attention to the temporal framework is again helpful. In comparison
to the generational gap that divides the first and second generations of remem-
brances, Jan Assmann’s concept of the floating gap divides collective memory
from cultural memory. The central point of the floating gap is that it takes ap-
proximately 80–120 years to stimulate text production and media change that
results in the standardization or canonization of formative stories that affect a
group’s identity. By the middle of the 1st c. CE, the biblical portrayals of past
events like the exodus and the great patriarchs (e. g., Abraham, Moses, and
David) were well established in the formation of Jewish identity. They were par-
ticularly constructive during the Seleucid period when threats to Jewish identity
intensified, and even at that point they well postdated the floating gap in the his-
tory of reception. Their fixed rendition in the medium of the scriptures of Israel
standardized the essential plot lines and narrated events, but their appropriation
varied, resulting in streams of exegetical traditions that prioritized select aspects
of the overall ethnic/national myth. Variations were essentially affected by needs
for new meanings usually in periods of crisis and trauma, which resulted in not
only text production and change of media (e. g., apocalyptic frameworks), but
expanded the applicability of culturally significant myths.50
I think that this is exactly what affected the evangelist’s use of scripture as it
was juxtaposed with Jesus’s identity construction. The evangelist is not simply
relying on inherited scripture frames as analogies or proof texts to make his case.
Rather, he is using scripture as a counter-memory that challenges the traditional
grand narrative about the revelation of God through Moses’s presentation
of the Torah. While containing less direct quotations than the Synoptics, the
Fourth Gospel presents the reader with explicit scriptural hermeneutical keys
for unlocking Jesus’s identity construction – in addition to the quotations, their
citation formulas, abundant allusions, and underlying biblical and early Jewish
themes, all of which have been developed in countless studies.51 Three of the most
explicit references are 1:45 (“Philip found Nathanael and said to him, ‘We have
found him about whom Moses in the law and also the prophets wrote, Jesus son
49 Schwartz, “Where There’s Smoke, There’s Fire,” 15–16.

50 J. Assmann, Religion und kulturelles Gedächtnis: Zehn Studien, 2nd ed. (München: Beck,
2004), 82.
51 This is not at the exclusion of broader Greco-Roman influences. They are simply not the
focus here.
of Joseph from Nazareth’”); 5:39 (“You search the scriptures because you think
that in them you have eternal life; and it is they that testify on my behalf ”); and
5:46 (“If you believed Moses, you would believe me, for he wrote about me”). In
addition, one can also point to 2:22 and 20:9. When these hermeneutical keys
are read alongside programmatic statements identifying the common purpose of
Jesus’s mission (10:10; 19:35) and the purpose for writing about it (20:31) as the
generating of life through belief that Jesus is the Messiah, the Son of God, then
we are confronted with a text whose process of identity construction is multi-
layered, with the thickest layer being clearly scripture.
Colleen Conway has persuasively argued along similar lines that the evangelist
functions as a kind of “new historicist” who constructs an imaginative counter-
history against both the culturally inherited history of Israel and the history of the
empire (e. g., 7:19–24). In the process, the incorporation of Jesus into the sacred
history of Israel further blurs lines of continuity between the Johannine Jesus
and the Jesus of the actual past. From another vantage point, it also blurs the line
between history and literature. At the beginning of the story, Jesus encompasses
history within a cosmic space and time as the logos, and at the end, he becomes
literature.52 A few examples support Conway’s case that the counter-historical
(or what I would deem mnemonic) process is pervasive. First, beginning in the
prologue, Jesus becomes the true mediating figure between God and his people,
apart from how one takes ἀντί in 1:16–18. Not only is Jesus placed alongside
Moses, taking on his divine-like status (e. g., Philo, Mos. 1.158), but he supplants
him and in effect flips the grand narrative against the “Jews.” Second, in calling
the temple “my Father’s house,” Jesus supplants traditional retellings and hopes
of restoration with his own body (2:22). Third, the process continues in drawing
comparisons between Jesus’s saving activity and Moses, who is portrayed as the
accuser of the Jews (3:14; 5:45). Fourth, the feeding of the five thousand dis-
places the story in the Torah about the feeding of the Israelites in the wilderness
with manna. Jesus becomes the true bread that offers eternal life (6:49–59). Fifth,
as a Jew, Jesus both uses the Jewish Law and distances himself from it (8:17–18).
Sixth, in the final mention of Moses, the “Jews” as the disciples of Moses are
negatively contrasted with a disciple of Jesus who truly sees (9:28–29). Seventh,
Jesus’s words and actions are viewed as the fulfillment of scripture (3:29; 12:38;
13:18; 15:25; 17:12; 18:9, 32), extending to the prioritization of Jesus’s words
over scripture. Finally, the counter-history which goes against the dominant
form of the retelling which shaped ethnic identity culminates in demolishing the
antagonists’ identity as the children of Moses, Abraham, and even God. Instead,
they become the children of the devil (8:39, 42, 44). The polemic results in the
tainting of the initial positive image, which now runs the risk of being hidden
52 Conway, “New Historicism and the Historical Jesus,” 209–13. The synthesis might be
implied in John 21:25.
in subsequent retellings.53 The old story, however, still needs to remain in the
new one so as to ground the new textual community. So, counter-memory as
a process that results in a counter-history should not be viewed as an act of
invention, but invented reproduction.54
2. The Mythmaking Dimension

A fuller way of understanding Jesus’s intertextual transformation can be achieved
through the integration of memory and mythmaking, which seamlessly dovetail
in the medium of the Fourth Gospel – further complicating the relationship
between the actual past and the present. It is surprising that there is no serious
attempt at this integration (that I am aware of ) given how often scholars working
in one of these two areas make cursory mention of the other. In some ways,
Jan Assmann’s conception of mnemohistory, as discussed above, comes close by
capturing how identity is developed in the Pentateuch through space and time
that is largely representative of this world. But it is less fitting for the Fourth
Gospel’s representation which formulates identity rhetorically by juxtaposing
scripture and a cosmic framework wherein Jesus’s identity is constructed as
the incarnate logos who reveals his Father and bridges heaven and earth. More-
over, it locates Jesus’s identity outside of space and time, within divine history,
and yet it is not apart from human history, which was a common juxtaposition
in antiquity (e. g., “the Word became flesh and dwelt among us”).55 I propose
that the designation of “mnemomyth” for the Fourth Gospel well captures how
strands of commemoration are amalgamated, unified, and rhetorically expressed
through the literary medium. Since the term “myth” evokes seemingly endless
nuances, clarity is vital.
My use of “myth” is rooted in ideological approaches to literature which
are not concerned only with content, as is the case in romantic and rationalist
theories of myth, but how that content rhetorically conveys an unified reality by
which identity is formed.56 Since ideology aims to convince, its orientation is
53 In addition, Conway (“New Historicism and the Historical Jesus,” 214) extends the sub-
versive acts of Jesus to other existing power structures. Jesus has the power to execute judgment
(5:27), he has the power over his life and death (10:18), power over others’ life and death (5:21;
6:40; 11:1–44). Only in John, he has the power to raise himself (contra Synoptics). He has power
over the ruler of the world (14:30). The Father has given him power over all flesh (17:2), which
Conway takes to mean the empire.
54 See also the discussion in R. Sheridan, “John’s Prologue as Exegetical Narrative,” in The
Gospel of John as Genre Mosaic, ed. K. B. Larsen, SANt 3 (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht,
2015), 171–90, 179–81.
55 On the proleptic use of John’s prologue, which merges two narrative worlds, see Sheridan,
“John’s Prologue as Exegetical Narrative,” 171–90; J. Assmann, “Myth as historia divina and his-
toria sacra,” in Scriptural Exegesis: The Shapes of Culture and the Religious Imagination, Essays
in Honor of Michael Fishbane, ed. D. A. Green and L. S. Lieber (Oxford: Oxford University
Press, 2009), 13–24.
56 On varied theories of myth, see R. Segal, Theorizing about Myth (Amherst, MA: Univer-
toward a holistic goal that will be adopted by others. Ideology’s uses of mythic
or imaginary elements, which are often historicized, are likewise employed for a
unifying function that seizes on fusing symbols like the divine. In Terry Eagle-
ton’s words, the mythic and imaginary elements aim to resolve contradictions
by employing such strategies as “unification, spurious identification, natural-
ization, deception, self-deception, universalization and rationalization.”57 The
“practical” feature of the ideological approach concerns social formation, which
assumes that humans naturally form groups that have common social interests.
Mythmaking plays a crucial role in the social process because it legitimizes a
group’s identity in relation to other groups. In Robert Ellwood’s words, “Myth
and mythmaking assimilate collectivities of people to a single leader or hero and
reduce complicated struggles to the war of the children of light against the chil-
dren of darkness.”58 In this regard, mythmaking may be used either to reinforce
or confront dominant power groups. It is the stage for ideological confrontation
and reinforcement, always bound to social interests, values, and group identity.
Since this process of mythmaking can never take place without social mnemonic
activity, it can be viewed as its organized and rhetorically legitimized extension
through the medium of a unified narrative about a given reality wherein identi-
ties are constructed.
The ideological approach emerges from the works of Roland Barthes who
argues that “myth is not defined by the object of its message, but the way it utters
this message: there are formal limits to myth, there are no ‘substantial’ ones.”59 In
a more recent adaptation of Barthes’s approach, Russell McCutcheon clarifies,
(1) that myths are not special (or “sacred”) but ordinary human means of fashioning and
authorizing their lived-in and believed-in “worlds,” (2) that myth as an ordinary rhetorical
device in social construction and maintenance makes this rather than that social identity
possible in the first place and (3) that a people’s use of the label “myth” reflects, expresses,
explores and legitimizes their own self-image.60
For Barthes, as well as McCutcheon, the real power of myth lies in its ability to
parade as a self-evident truth, which is rooted in Barthes theory of how language
sity of Massachusetts Press, 1999); H. Blumenberg, Work on Myth (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press,
1985).
57 T. Eagleton, Ideology: An Introduction (London: Verso, 1991), 222.
58 R. Ellwood, “Is Mythology Obsolete?,” JAAR 69 (2001): 673–86, here 680. On social
formation and mythmaking, see also, B. Mack, “Social Formation,” in Guide to the Study of
Religion, ed. W. Braun and R. T. McCutcheon (London: Cassell, 2000), 292; W. Arnal and
W. Braun, “Social Formation and Mythmaking: Theses on Key Terms” in Redescribing Chris-
tian Origins, ed. R. Cameron and M. P. Miller, SymS 28 (Atlanta: SBL, 2004), 459–68.
59 R. Barthes, Mythologies, trans. A. Lavers (New York: Noonday Press, 1972), 109.
60 R. T. McCutcheon, “Myth,” in Braun and McCutcheon, Guide to the Study of Religion,
200. See also B. Lincoln, Theorizing Myth: Narrative, Ideology, and Scholarship (Chicago: Uni-
versity of Chicago Press, 1999), xii, 147; E. Csapo, Theories of Mythology, Ancient Cultures
(Oxford and Malden, MA: Blackwell, 2005), 9.
functions as a semiological system, that is, a system of signs and referents.61 In

language, the meaning of any given sign is defined not by the literal referent, but
by the sign and its relationship to other signs within the language system. As a
formal equation, the signifier (acoustic sound) + the signified (mental image) =
the sign (which may be a picture, painting, ritual, etc.). The mythological sign
has no literal referent, but acquires meaning from the cultural system to which it
belongs. Consider Barthes’s well-known example of a black boy in a French uni-
form saluting the French flag on the cover of Paris-Match. Initially, it is literally
a picture of a boy in a uniform gazing slightly skyward and saluting. But when
it is viewed within its cultural system (from which meaning is always initiated),
it signifies that “France is a great Empire, that all her sons, without any color
discrimination, faithfully serve under her flag, and that there is no better answer
to the detractors of alleged colonialism than the zeal shown by this Negro in
serving his so-called oppressors.”62
It is in this sense that the scriptural hermeneutic in the Fourth Gospel func-
tions to transform Jesus’s identity. The scriptural symbols are not only recalled,
but re-actualized (akin to ritual). Jesus is clothed with the uniform of Moses, the
Jewish feasts, and the symbols in the “I am” sayings, to mention the obvious ones,
in a coherent whole like a seamless robe. The resulting portrait has no literal
referent, but the intertextual relationships between the signs acquire a unified
meaning conveying rhetorical force in that cultural system as a counter-memory.
In addition to its unifying and rhetorical functions, myth also impacts how
we might think about distance between scripture and the Fourth Gospel. The
use of the scriptures as memory frames and literary symbols that invoke the
past essentially destroys time since the evangelist’s framework is prophetic
wherein events of the past function as symbols within a closed cyclical or
static system. The “pastness” of scripture is always re-presented as performance.
This is starkly different from viewing the situation facing the Johannine com-
munity as prognosis which produces time out of events within a linear system.63
Despite the wide recognition of John’s realized eschatology, historical critical
approaches have tended to understand embedded scripture texts from the per-
spective of Western modernity’s acknowledgment of distance from the past
and have inclined to impose that onto ancient citation practices. By contrast,
social memory theory and ideological approaches to mythmaking have come to
challenge temporal distance by bringing attention to the fluid intertextuality of
meaning making, which leads to a better representation of the prophetic frame-
work of antiquity where events are viewed as symbols of renewal that always
61 Barthes, Mythologies, 114.

62 Barthes, Mythologies, 116.
63 R. Koselleck, Futures Past: On the Semantics of Historical Time, trans. K. Tribe (Cam-
bridge, MA: MIT Press, 1985), 14; D. Lowenthal, The Past Is a Foreign Country – Revisited
(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2015), 353, 359.
lead to certainty of approaching fulfillment.64 Prophetic miscalculations do not

require containment because they can be always renewed within a framework
that is fixated on the telos and is not subject to time.65 Attention is directed at
the existential or emotional dimension, recognizing the integration of facts and
feelings, which abolishes distance in the fusing of past and present.66 Put simply
for our purposes, scripture functions as a myth-evoking symbol that is inherent
to and encodes Jesus’s identity construction within a prophetic framework where
nothing novel can emerge in the sense that invented reproduction is a given
necessity. For the Fourth Gospel, there is only one self-evident reality which is
rooted in the hero who reinforces his identity and confronts dominant opposing
power groups, such as the “Jews” and the “world.”
The Fourth Gospel’s merging of diverse scriptural frames, narrative space
and prophetic time into one rhetorical presentation of a single identity construct
can be conceptualized with the help of Northrop Frye.67 His conception of myth
is rooted in the unification of sense perception (which is at times called “the lit-
eral”) and consciousness (which constitutes “the imagination”). In other words,
it is an integration of material and spiritual aspects of a culture, whereby the
whole of life is perceived as a single mental form that attempts to transform the
totality of human experience into symbol or art through an albeit fragmented
mnemonic process. In so doing, it attempts to unify or harmonize truth, always
in a persuasive manner since identity depends on it. For Frye, this single mental
form is the drama of life, which is the archetype of all prophecy and art, even if
each only reveals and transforms reality in pieces. The mythical element, which
unifies memories, is this single mental form that seeks to make sense of a unified
reality. As Frye puts it, myth is “the end of the journey of our intellectual powers.”68
As cultural or societal cohesion, myth is a socially established truth and reality,
though not necessarily tied to or derived from evidence or reason. Truth is that
which a society does and believes. It is, as Frye says, “the language of belief ” out
of which literature and art are existentially commissioned and received.69
64 This is one of the key points in J. K. Olick, V. Vinitzky-Seroussi, and D. Levy, eds.,
Collective Memory Reader (New York: Oxford University Press, 2011).
65 Koselleck, Futures Past, 14–16.
66 Lowenthal, Past is a Foreign Country, 381.
67 Foundational principles of his conception are presented in his Fearful Symmetry: A Study
of William Blake (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1947); idem, Words with Power:
Being a Second Study of “The Bible and Literature” (Toronto: Penguin, 1992). While Frye can be
situated within an ideological approach to myth, his view is broader than B. Lincoln’s ideology
in narrative form. Ideology, for Frye, is subordinated to myth, not the reverse. Mythology cre-
ates ideology, which in turn selects, adapts, historicizes, and applies myth in the formation
of a social belief system. Myth in this context provides an identity and a shared knowledge
proclaiming what must be known (Words with Power, 31).
68 Frye, Fearful Symmetry, 340.
69 N. Frye, The Critical Path: An Essay on the Social Context of Literary Criticism (Bloom-
ington, IN: Indiana University Press, 1971), 36.
This artistic process that seeks a unified whole is no different from what we
see in the Fourth Gospel’s use of the Jewish scriptures, traditions, and customs.
The evangelist is a poet who retells the past in light of the present, and vice
versa, constructing a unified presentation of Jesus that his community needed
to know as the “truth.”70 Thus, the poet’s particular attribute is not so much a
knowledge of style, but a broad knowledge of data stemming from an under-
standing of what we might call a mythopoeic history of Israel. The rhetorical
force of Jesus’s intertextual transformation breaks with accepted ideology and
frees (and instinctively compels) the readers/listeners in his community to
create their own, but not as analogies. Rather, Frye finds more cohesion in iden-
tity, which is the principle behind metaphor and imagination, and ultimately
myth. In other words, we are who we are because of events that have happened
in a distant past. The identification process in myth occurs within the medium of
historicized stories that bestow meaning and coherence onto past data points. In
the Fourth Gospel, the primary historiographical and rhetorical generator is the
intervention of the divine through Christ, which is the main impetus for making
the past “narratable” through coherent connections of causality.71
C. Implications for Genre

How does the Fourth Gospel’s “mnemomythic” reception process, which un-
deniably challenges the continuity between the actual past and the present,
impinge on genre? So much depends on how we understand genre, of course.
At first glance, they appear as distinct categories since reception can take nu-
merous literary forms, and yet they are integrated. It is not an easy question to
answer. In Gospel studies, however, reception and genre are rarely theorized.
They are often simply linked.72 For example, David Aune claims that ancient
biographies are closely integrated with content that was rooted in historical fact
and authorial intention.73 Craig Keener adopts the same link in stronger terms,
writing: “That John falls into the general category of biography, however, [it] at
least shifts the burden of proof on the matter of reported events … onto those
who deny John’s use of tradition for the events he describes, although the his-
70 Frye, Words with Power, 54.

71 See the similar approach to Mesopotamian historiography in Assmann, “Myth as historia
divina and historia sacra,” 17–18.
72 This is not surprising given that neither reception processes nor the study of the Fourth
Gospel’s genre has received much attention, unlike the Synoptics which were subjected to form
critical evaluations about a century ago that led to designations like folklore literature. John was
instead subjected to source-critical treatments and conceived of as a literary art. See the discus-
sion in K. B. Larsen, “Introduction: The Gospel of John as Genre Mosaic,” in idem, Gospel of
John as Genre Mosaic, 13–21, here 15–16.
73 D. E. Aune, “Graeco-Roman Biography,” in Greco-Roman Literature and the New Tes-
tament: Selected Forms and Genres, ed. idem, SBLSBS 21 (Atlanta: Scholars Press, 1988), 107–26.
torical method cannot check the accuracy of most of his individual details.”74
This argument, however, assumes a separation of tradition and memory. When
text formation is understood through the reception processes of social memory
and ideological mythmaking within the medium of narration, then the same
logic would dictate that the burden of proof shifts on to claimants that currently
lack a theory of reception. Furthermore, the assumption of sequence requires
attention. Should a genre categorization precede an evaluation of the Fourth
Gospel’s hermeneutic? I think not since it risks curtailing processes of reception
and their relationship to the actual past. It risks replacing the principle of “theo-
ry and falsification” with a prescriptive literary categorization that supposedly
sets expectations for the intended readers. Expectations, however, are imprecise
since they depend on the identities of the readers.
Then, there is the problem of defining genre itself. Most recent genre critics
emphasize that genres emerge and develop despite their being recognized. They
emerge from readers instead of predetermined strict patterns into which speech
and writing must fit.75 If genres are products of everyday communication and
not accepted patterns to which one conforms, as Bakhtin and Todorov have in
distinct ways argued, then they may be less useful for analyzing expectations and
authorial intentions, and more useful for understanding their social function.76
If this is the way to look at genre, then traditional attempts to identify texts ac-
cording to prescribed categories may not matter anymore. A case in point is the
Fourth Gospel’s use of the scriptures and the Synoptics. Whatever the initial
intentions and expectations, the impact on the evangelist was otherwise. He con-
structed a genre that emerged out of a specific situation that required a response.
If John’s genre was formed for the purposes of addressing current concerns and
to make sense of present experiences in light of the past, then the narrative for-
mation is inherently linked with processes of remembrance and their unification
in mythmaking.
1. Genre and the Implied Audience

If genre has more to do with effect than with static categorization, then it is fluid
and multi-dimensional. It allows us to make a distinction between what the
74 Keener, Gospel of John, 1:51.

75 A. Rosmarin, The Power of Genre (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1985).
The watershed study that transformed the study of genre from a literary and aesthetic enterprise
to a rhetorical, linguistic, didactic and interdisciplinary endeavor is C. Miller, “Genre as Social
Action,” Quarterly Journal of Speech 70 (1984): 151–67. On recent approaches to genre and its
impact on the Fourth Gospel, see S. Auken, “Contemporary Genre Studies: An Interdisciplinary
Conversation with Johannine Scholarship,” in Larsen, Gospel of John as Genre Mosaic, 47–66.
76 M. Bakhtin, Speech Genres and Other Late Essays, ed. C. Emerson and M. Holquist,
trans. V. W. McGee (Austin, TX: University of Texas, 1986); T. Todorov, “The Origin of Genres,”
New Literary History 8 (1976): 159–70.
ancients thought about John’s genre and what we might think about it. With
respect to the ancients, it makes sense to investigate how the Fourth Gospel, as
a dramatic narrative, attempts to socially impact its implied readers/listeners.
Its hermeneutical keys and clues certainly play a role in forming a plausibility
of effect, which from the narrator’s point of view is new life through belief that
Jesus is the Christ, the revealer of God (1:7, 10–14; 20:31). In recent years,
several Johannine scholars have concentrated on how John interacts with
genre in the ancient world in light of genre criticism.77 The shift from view-
ing the Fourth Gospel as a simple literary category like bios written within an
idealistic set of boundaries to a blending and bending of genres that are more
defined by their social impact is often credited to Harold W. Attridge, who in
his presidential address at the 2001 SBL meeting in Denver raised the question:
“Why does the Fourth Gospel exhibit so much interest in playing with generic
conventions, extending them, undercutting them, twisting traditional elements
into new and curious shapes, making literary forms do things that did not come
naturally to them?”78 While genre bending and blending are phenomena of
modern literature, Attridge has found them to be an intrinsic part of meaning
production in ancient Jewish and Greco-Roman literature. He relies on the work
of Joseph Farrell who notices that archetypical paradigms did not in fact govern
how ancients wrote. The fluidity and veering away from patterns is especially
noticeable in the Hellenistic and Roman periods. Farrell observes that “by the
Hellenistic and Roman periods, it comes to seem that testing and even violating
generic boundaries was not merely an inevitable and accidental consequence
of writing in any genre, but an important aspect of the poet’s craft.”79 While we
unfortunately do not have the theorizing of genre in early Jewish or Christian
literature, unlike in Aristotle’s Poetics or Horace’s Ars Poetica, we do see a kind
of patterning or as Attridge calls it, “mimetic plays” that allow for the retention of
some features in similar writings.80
Amidst the generic blends and bends, the final editor appears to have been
convinced that he was writing historiography based on reliable testimony in
order to bolster the credibility of his portrayal of Jesus. According to R. Alan
Culpepper, the editor employs standard mechanics of credibility used in ancient
narratives by using a sphragis (a literary seal of authenticity), which we see for
77 Larsen, “Introduction,” 13–14. While genre frames of reference have been divided into
macro genre (e. g., bios, drama, novel, historiographical writing) and micro genres (e. g., pro-
logue, riddle, miracle story, parable, farewell discourse, midrash), it is the former that is of
interest here.
78 H. W. Attridge, “Genre Bending in the Fourth Gospel,” JBL 121 (2002): 3–21, 20.
79 J. Farrell, “Classical Genre in Theory and Practice,” New Literary History 34 (2003):
383–408, 388. See also the concurring findings in J. Derrida, “La loi du genre?/The Law of
Genre,” Glyph 7 (1980): 176–232.
80 H. W. Attridge, “The Gospel of John: Genre Matters?” in Larsen, Gospel of John as Genre
Mosaic, 27–45, here 29.
example in Lucian of Samosata and Luke, when he underscores in 21:24 the

truth of what was written.81 If Culpepper is correct, then we see yet another
blend and bend since the “history” is qualitatively different from that of Lucian
and Luke which are more like reports.82 In addition to providing an enlightened
understanding of the events from the perspective of scripture, the Parakletos,
and the resurrection, the Fourth Gospel locates history within a metaphysically
integrated construct of reality that reveals the divine, bridging heaven and earth
in the person of Jesus, which moves the narrative away from traditional con-
ceptions of ancient bios83 (as a product of mnemohistory) toward a blending and
bending of ancient bios as a product of mnemomyth that cannot be confirmed
objectively, but only through testimony as received by the community.
Finally, there is even good evidence that the “truth” in 21:24 should be taken
as a literary device that had a legitimizing function. To view it otherwise, argues
Andrew T. Lincoln, is a category mistake since the Fourth Gospel is about the
reality of God’s revelation in Jesus. Implied eyewitness testimony such as seeing
blood and water coming from Jesus’s side on the cross (19:35) and the empty
tomb (20:8) is equivalent to language of belief and confession. Lincoln advances
his position by drawing on studies that have demonstrated the rhetorical func-
tion of eyewitness testimony among ancient historians, which he calls autopsy
(autopsia). This strategy employed in the writing of both biographies and his-
tories, which would have been familiar to informed readers, would have relied
on invention and creativity as a central practice that bolstered the apologetic
through the conveyance of verisimilitude.84
81 R. A. Culpepper, “John 21:24–25: The Johannine Sphragis,” in Anderson, Just, and
Thatcher, Aspects of Historicity, 349–64.
82 Attridge (“Gospel of John,” 33, 34) poses the right question: “So what is the evangelist’s
generic strategy in writing his Gospel? If he is using as models Mark and Luke (and possibly
Matthew), why does he choose to go down a different path, to tell the story of the public activity,
death, and resurrection of Jesus in a different key?” His answer is that John’s departure from his
predecessors says something important about the narrative rhetoric. John is presenting Jesus in
a dramatic way because he believes that a historicizing account does not explain encounter with
God. John writes what Plato and Aristotle defined as opposite of διήγησις.
83 E. g., R. A. Burridge, What Are the Gospels? A Comparison with Greco-Roman Biography,
2nd ed. (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 2004), 3rd ed. (Waco, TX: Baylor University Press,
2018). Note the complex nature of genre in T. Hägg, The Art of Biography in Antiquity (Cam-
bridge: Cambridge University Press, 2012).
84 A. T. Lincoln, “‘We Know That His Testimony is True’: Johannine Truth Claims and His-
toricity,” in Anderson, Just, and Thatcher, Critical Appraisals, 179–97, 184–85. Lincoln appeals
to C. B. R. Pelling, “Truth and Fiction in Plutarch’s Lives,” in Antonine Literature, ed. D. A. Rus-
sell (Oxford: Clarendon Press; New York: Oxford University Press, 1990), 19–52. Lincoln’s
claim is similar to P. Veyne’s study of truth in Greek myths, which are not to be viewed as trans-
historical, but as products of the imagination that address specific meanings and values (Did
the Greeks Believe in Their Myths? An Essay on the Constitutive Imagination, trans. P. Wissing
[Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1988], 117–18).
Ultimately, if we are to think of genre in pragmatic and rhetorical terms rather

than taxonomic ones, then all we can do is draw hypotheses about how the
Fourth Gospel was read. As is well known, by the second century some Christian
readers distinguished John from the Synoptics by calling it a spiritual Gospel,
but this was certainly not uniform. It is a drama, as Attridge proposes. It con-
tains elements of bios, autopsia, novel, history, paradox, and more. When placed
chronologically between the Synoptcs and the non-canonical Gospels, it can be
viewed as a transitional narrative that broke with convention and influenced
transformations of Jesus in subsequent invented reproductions.
2. Genre and the Non-Implied Audience

The social impact of the Fourth Gospel on later non-implied audiences, such
as ourselves, may be entirely different if the writer’s idealized cognitive models
are not shared and if the frames for social action are non-existent. While the
theories of reception that I have proposed here problematize the continuity of
meaning from the actual past of Jesus to the present of the Fourth Gospel at the
etic level of inquiry, they may not be accepted or shared at the emic levels which
are guided by theological pressures that require continuity. The outcome is that
the Fourth Gospel is received differently, and consequently takes on different
genres, particularly bios for those stressing continuity. Regardless, even emic
systems require an explanation of reception within systems of religion which
characteristically absorbs history into itself to produce the real. The fusion of the
tradition’s truth and meaning is exactly what happens in the prologue where the
finitude of space, time, the physical and historical are absorbed into the infinite
and invisible. In the evangelist’s emic system there is no history apart the Word.
The only access to the Word is in the text. The Word becomes flesh, but only in
the identity construction of the text.85
Either way, for etic and emic approaches, the looming problem is that genre
is subject to, and even overlaps with, reception. If genres, are “in the eyes of the
beholders,” then it further complicates our opening problem of the relationship
between the actual past of Jesus and the present of the Fourth Gospel. The way
forward for etic inquiry that distinguishes a tradition’s truth and meaning, in my
estimation, is to view the hermeneutic of the Fourth Gospel as a mnemomyth,
which functions as the precursor to genre, always creating potential for “genre
in the making.”86
85 Conway, “New Historicism and the Historical Jesus,” 211.

86 M. M. Bakhtin, “Epic and Novel,” in idem, The Dialogic Imagination: Four Essays by
M. M. Bakhtin, ed. M. Holquist, trans. C. Emerson and M. Holquist (Austin, TX: University of
Texas Press, 1981), 3–40, 5.
Revelation and Rhetoric in John 9:1–10:21
Two Dialogical Modes Operative
within the Johannine Narrative
Paul N. Anderson
With the Russian form critic Mikhail Bakhtin, stupidity in narrative is always
rhetorical. Misunderstanding exposes simplistic conventions and unexamined
notionalities, especially when actants are presented in dialogue with the pro-
tagonist, who always gets it right.1 Nowhere in the NT is such a feature displayed
more lucidly than in the Gospel of John, where persons are confronted with the
divine initiative, calling forth a response of faith to revelation and/or the Revealer
over lesser alternatives rooted in human origins and worldly perspectives. An
intriguing fact of the Johannine narrative, however, is that these two dialogical
modes – revelation and rhetoric – are also signaled within most of John’s narratives
by noting who takes the initiative within a scenario. Overall, when Jesus or God’s
agents take the initiative, humans are invited to respond in faith to the divine
initiative. Where they do, the result is life-producing and positively credited.
Where they do not, such responses are presented in terms of unbelief and neg-
ative outcomes. Further, when the initiative shifts to the discussant(s), that person
or group is exposed as miscomprehending and rejecting of the divine initiative,
leading to further consequences and dramatic tension within the narrative.
Since the work of J. Louis Martyn half a century ago, John 9 has served as a
window into the Johannine situation, and yet John’s audiences extended beyond
a diaspora-based Johannine-synagogue set of dialogues.2 Given the important
genre analysis of the Gospels by Richard A. Burridge a quarter-century ago,3 a
1 M. M. Bakhtin, The Dialogic Imagination: Four Essays, ed. M. Holquist, trans. C. Emer-
son and M. Holquist (Austin, TX: University of Texas Press, 1981), 403; see also 164. For an
application of Bakhtin’s dialogism to John 6, see P. N. Anderson, The Christology of the Fourth
Gospel: Its Unity and Disunity in the Light of John 6, WUNT 2/78 (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck,
1996), 3rd ed. (Eugene, OR: Cascade Books, 2010), 194–96, 221–26.
2 J. L. Martyn, History and Theology in the Fourth Gospel (New York: Harper & Row, 1968),
3rd ed., NTL (Louisville, KY: Westminster John Knox, 2003). See also idem, The Gospel of John
in Christian History: Essays for Interpreters, Theological Inquiries (New York: Paulist, 1978);
repr. The Gospel of John in Christian History: Seven Glimpses into the Johannine Community, ed.
P. N. Anderson, JohMS 8 (Eugene, OR: Wipf & Stock, 2019).
3 R. A. Burridge, What Are the Gospels? A Comparison with Graeco-Roman Biography, 3rd
ed. (Waco, TX: Baylor University Press, 2018).
442 Paul N. Anderson
closer look at the Johannine dialogues in that chapter and elsewhere contrib-
utes insights into realities behind the text as well as in front of the text. If the
Johannine dialogues with Jesus are viewed within the larger genre of ancient
Hellenistic and Jewish bioi, this may indeed shed light upon the ministry of Jesus
as conveyed within the Johannine tradition. As such tropes functioned rhetor-
ically within the Johannine narrative, however, they also provide hints about
issues within the emerging Johannine situation within which they were crafted
and delivered. Therefore, when assessed among John’s literary, historical, and
theological features, noting parallels with and departures from similar genres in
antiquity may contribute insights into how to address a number of the Johannine
riddles. Before considering the relation of Burridge’s advances to interpreting
the Fourth Gospel, however, a fitting understanding of the origin and character
of the Johannine narrative must first be set forth.
A. Johannine Polyvalence, Misunderstanding

Dialogues, and Genre Studies
Any critically worthy analysis of the Johannine narrative must account for
Johannine dialogism, which is operative on several levels: theological, historical,
and literary. Indeed, the failure to do so accounts, in part, for the fact that there is
more disagreement as to the origin and development of the Johannine tradition
than any other part of the NT.4 However, when the polyvalence of John’s dialo-
gism is taken seriously from the outset, more fitting critical judgments and more
adequate exegetical interpretations are thereby insured. Consider, for instance,
three types or forms of dialectic operative within each of the aforementioned
realms.5
Regarding John’s theological dialogism, we have: (a) the evangelist as a
thoroughly dialectical thinker, who approaches many issues in both-and ways
instead of either-or dichotomies;6 (b) a Jewish agency schema (rooted in
4 On the Johannine perplexities (aporias) see E. Schwartz, “Aporien im vierten Evangelium,”

parts I–IV, in Nachrichten von der Königlichen Gesellschaft der Wissenschaften zu Göttingen
I (1907): 342–72; II (1908): 115–48; III (1908): 149–88; IV (1908): 497–560. For an analysis
of three-dozen riddles (theological, historical, and literary) and their epistemological origins,
see P. N. Anderson, The Riddles of the Fourth Gospel: An Introduction to John (Minneapolis:
Fortress, 2011).
5 For a fuller analysis of John’s polyvalent story of Jesus, see P. N. Anderson, “From One
Dialogue to Another: Johannine Polyvalence from Origins to Receptions,” in Anatomies of
Narrative Criticism: The Past, Present, and Futures of the Fourth Gospel as Literature, ed. S. D.
Moore and T. Thatcher, RBS 55 (Atlanta: SBL, 2008), 93–119.
6 C. K. Barrett, “The Dialectical Theology of St. John,” in idem, New Testament Essays
(London: SPCK, 1972), 49–69. See also P. N. Anderson, Christology of the Fourth Gospel,
137–63; idem, “The Cognitive Origins of John’s Christological Unity and Disunity,” HBT 17
(1995): 1–24.
Revelation and Rhetoric in John 9:1–10:21 443
Deut 18:15–22) presenting Jesus as the eschatological Prophet-like-Moses, who

says or does nothing on his own but only what he is commanded by the Father;7
and (c) an overall divine-human dialogue, whereby persons in the narrative
and among John’s audiences are invited to respond to the divine initiative in
believing and receptive ways.8 Thus, John’s story of Jesus is crafted so as to lead
hearers and readers to believe in Jesus as the Messiah/Christ, the Son of God,
and believing, to receive life in his name (John 20:30–31).
Regarding John’s historical dialogism, we have: (a) intratraditional engage-
ments, where earlier understandings and impressions within John’s memory of
Jesus are expanded upon, corrected, and otherwise revisited in the light of later
perceptions and experiences;9 (b) intertraditional engagements, where John’s
story of Jesus can be seen to be augmenting, correcting, and expanding upon
Mark and other Synoptic renderings;10 and (c) emerging Johannine-situation
engagements, where individuals and groups within John’s various audiences are
engaged dialogically by means of the Johannine writings.11 Thus, John’s story
of Jesus connects memory of what happened with the situational needs of later
7 P. Borgen, “God’s Agent in the Fourth Gospel,” in The Interpretation of John, ed. J. Ashton,
2nd ed., SNTI (Edinburgh: T&T Clark, 1997), 83–96. See also P. N. Anderson, “The Having-
Sent-Me Father: Aspects of Agency, Encounter, and Irony in the Johannine Father-Son Rela-
tionship,” Semeia 85 (1999): 33–57.
8 According to S. M. Schneiders (“Women in the Fourth Gospel and the Role of Women
in the Contemporary Church,” BTB 12 [1982]: 35–45, 39), “The central concern of the Fourth
Gospel is the saving revelation which takes place in Jesus. This revelation, however, must be
understood as a dialogical process of Jesus’ self-manifestation as the one being continuously
sent by the Father (7:16–18) who is thereby encountered in Jesus (10:30; 14:9–11) and the
response of belief on the part of the disciple (17:8).” See also P. N. Anderson, Navigating the
Living Waters of the Gospel of John: On Wading with Children and Swimming with Elephants,
Pendle Hill Pamphlet 352 (Wallingford, PA: Pendle Hill, 2000).
9 The Gospel of John possesses early memories of Jesus and his ministry as well as later
reflections; see E. R. Goodenough, “John: A Primitive Gospel,” JBL 64 (1946): 145–82; and
Anderson, Christology of the Fourth Gospel.
10 With R. Bauckham, “John for Readers of Mark,” in The Gospels for All Christians:
Rethinking the Gospel Audiences, ed. idem (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1998), 147–71. See
also I. D. Mackay, John’s Relationship with Mark: An Analysis of John 6 in the Light of Mark 6–8,
WUNT 2/182 (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2004), who envisions John’s familiarity with Mark’s
story of Jesus as a factor of hearing it performed in one or more meetings for worship as it
circulated among the churches. For fuller analyses of the Johannine-Markan relationship, see
P. N. Anderson, “John and Mark: The Bi-Optic Gospels,” in Jesus in Johannine Tradition, ed.
R. T. Fortna and T. Thatcher (Louisville, KY: Westminster John Knox Press, 2001), 175–88;
P. N. Anderson, “Mark, John, and Answerability: Interfluentiality and Dialectic between the
Second and Fourth Gospels,” LASBF 63 (2013): 197–245.
11 A fuller outline of a half dozen or more dialogical engagements within the evolving
Johannine situation is argued by R. E. Brown, The Community of the Beloved Disciple (New
York: Paulist, 1979); and idem, An Introduction to the Gospel of John, ed. F. J. Moloney, ABRL
(New York: Doubleday, 2003). See also D. M. Smith, Johannine Christianity: Essays on Its Set-
ting, Sources, and Theology (Columbia, SC: University of South Carolina Press, 1984); and P. N.
Anderson, “The Sitz im Leben of the Johannine Bread of Life Discourse and Its Evolving Con-
text,” in Critical Readings of John 6, ed. R. A. Culpepper, BibInt 22 (Leiden: Brill, 1997), 1–59.
audiences, offering an alternative to familiar renderings with some intentionality

(21:24–25).
Regarding John’s literary dialogism, we have: (a) at least an earlier and a final
stage of John’s composition process that are evident, with the earlier material
having an apologetic thrust (showing Jesus to be the Jewish Messiah/Christ),
and the later material having a pastoral function (calling for unity and sol-
idarity with Jesus and his community facing divisions and discord, reflected in
the Johannine Epistles);12 (b) audiences who are engaged rhetorically by means
of a number of features, including irony, characterization, plot development, and
experiential-hymnic incorporation;13 and (c) emerging audiences who are drawn
into imaginary dialogues with Jesus by means of the rhetorically constructed
misunderstanding dialogues within the narrative.14 Thus, John’s story of Jesus is
developed rhetorically, challenging inadequate understandings and inviting any
and all who believe to become members of the divine family (1:10–13).
Therefore, while the Fourth Gospel is theologically developed, it also reflects
a self-standing, autonomous presentation of Jesus and his ministry, connecting
Palestine-based memory with the needs of diaspora-setting audiences.15 There is
no evidence of alien traditions underlying John, and while the evangelist is likely
aware of at least Mark, 85 % of the Fourth Gospel is unique to John, and none of
the Johannine-Markan parallels are verbatim.16 Thus, while plausibly influenced
12 Building on the works of R. E. Brown and others, a modified view of the modest two-
edition approach to John’s composition as put forward by B. Lindars (The Gospel of John, NCB
[London: Oliphants, 1972], repr. [Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1981]) deals with the major
aporias in the most efficient way possible. See also J. Ashton, Understanding the Fourth Gospel
(Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1991); and P. N. Anderson, “On ‘Seamless Robes’ and ‘Left-
over Fragments’: A Theory of Johannine Composition,” in The Origins of John’s Gospel, ed. S. E.
Porter and H. T. Ong, Johannine Studies 2 (Leiden: Brill, 2016), 169–218.
13 R. A. Culpepper, Anatomy of the Fourth Gospel: A Study in Literary Design, FF (Philadel-
phia: Fortress, 1983). See also P. N. Anderson, “On Guessing Points and Naming Stars: The
Epistemological Origins of John’s Christological Tensions,” in The Gospel of John and Christian
Theology, ed. R. Bauckham and C. Mosser (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 2008), 311–45.
14 J. L. Staley, The Print’s First Kiss: A Rhetorical Investigation of the Implied Reader in The
Fourth Gospel, SBLDS 82 (Atlanta: Scholars Press, 1988); G. R. O’Day, Revelation in the Fourth
Gospel: Narrative Mode and Theological Claim (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1986). See also P. N.
Anderson, “Bakhtin’s Dialogism and the Corrective Rhetoric of the Johannine Misunderstand-
ing Dialogue: Exposing Seven Crises in the Johannine Situation,” in Bakhtin and Genre Theory
in Biblical Studies, ed. R. Boer, SemeiaSt 63 (Atlanta: SBL, 2007), 133–59.
15 In J. H. Charlesworth, ed., Jesus and Archaeology (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans,
2006), see the essays on numerous aspects of archaeology, topography, and mundane features
at the root of John’s story of Jesus, despite its corollary theological developments, esp. U. C.
von Wahlde, “Archaeology and John’s Gospel,” ibid., 523–86; and P. N. Anderson, “Aspects of
Historicity in John: Implications for Archaeological and Jesus Studies,” 587–618. See also P. N.
Anderson, “Juan: El Evangelio Terrenal y la Arqueología,” Arqueología e Historia 18 (April
2018): 39–45.
16 For a full critical analysis of diachronic theories of John’s composition (Bultmann, Fort-
na, Haenchen, etc.) and Johannine-Synoptic dependence theories (Barrett, Neirynck, Brodie,
etc.), see Anderson, Christology of the Fourth Gospel, 33–136.
by the Markan project, John’s story of Jesus is not dependent on Mark, but it
deserves to be seen as an autonomous alternative bios, providing a chronological
and geographical augmentation, and to some degree a modest corrective, posing
a bit of a pushback to some of Mark’s presentation of Jesus for historical reasons,
not simply theological ones. Put otherwise, while Matthew and Luke built upon
Mark, John built around Mark.17 John is different on purpose, and one of John’s
key contributions involves its dramatic dialogues with Jesus.
B. Burridge’s Genre Analysis:

The Johannine Gospel as a Bios
As the critical study of Gospel traditions has applied modern methodologies

to biblical texts, a worthy consideration involves the question of ancient genre
analysis. While nineteenth-century genre classifications of the canonical Gospels
as biographical “lives of Jesus” led to undue speculation resulting in the dispar-
aging of the classification itself, this does not mean that the Gospels would have
not been regarded as biographical narratives within their contextual settings.
To oversimplify the history of Jesus research, the rejection of the Gospels as
biographical lives of Jesus involved several factors. First, similarities and dif-
ferences between the Gospels were not accounted for within adequate literary-
relationship and socio-religious analyses. Second, form-critical inferences of
folkloric and mythological collections of materials led scholars to focus on the
fragmentary character of Gospel traditions rather than seeing them as reflecting
coherent first-hand, second-hand, or even more distant memories of Jesus and
his ministry. Third, objectivistic valuations of what is meant by “history” invited
resistance to seeing Gospel narratives as biographical, given their theological in-
vestments and distinctive features between them. Thus, one can appreciate why
nineteenth-century Continental scholarship demurred at seeing the canonical
Gospels within the genre of Hellenistic “lives” of heroic figures.18 To see Gospels
as bioi might imply a historical genre – a scandalous bridge too far for resolutely
skeptical scholars.
17 For full treatments of a “bi-optic hypothesis,” see P. N. Anderson, The Fourth Gospel and
the Quest for Jesus: Modern Foundations Reconsidered, LNTS 321 (London: T&T Clark, 2006),
101–26; idem, “Das ‘John, Jesus, and History Projekt’: Neue Beobachtungen zu Jesus und eine
Bi-optische Hypothese,” ZNT 12/23 (2009): 12–26; see also the revised and expanded edition
in English: “The John, Jesus, and History Project – New Glimpses of Jesus and a Bi-Optic
Hypothesis,” The Bible and Interpretation (February 2010), http://www.bibleinterp.com/artic
les/john1357917.shtml.
18 See, of course, the expansive treatment of Jesus scholarship by A. Schweitzer, The Quest of
the Historical Jesus, ed. J. Bowden, trans. W. Montgomery, J. R. Coates, S. Cupitt, and J. Bowden
These objections, however, have not withstood the challenge of Burridge’s

research, as the number of shared features between ancient bioi and Gospel
narratives is impressive. Additionally, modern understandings of ancient his-
toriographies are not as dominated by von Rankian objectivism as they once
were, nor have form-critical analyses won the day as the most robust of historio-
graphical methodologies. Put otherwise, evidence of early traditional material
being gathered as form-particular collections is insufficient to sustain alternative
models of traditional development and composition.19 Thus, while identifying
literary forms of material within Gospel traditions may assist one’s understand-
ing of their functions, origins, and developments, such does not imply isolated
developments of particular forms within individuated sources. That being the
case, the larger value of Burridge’s research shows that because the canonical
Gospels cohere with the basic features of ancient biographical narratives, they
can be seen as offering glimpses into life and ministry of Jesus, despite their
similarities and differences.20
Then again, ancient biographical narratives may themselves be classified
along the lines of different genres.21 With reference to the Johannine narrative,
should it be considered a heroic narrative, a tragedy, a satire, or a religious his-
tory? Or, even within the bios genre, are there different forms of material that
have been gathered into a narrative whole by the narrator? A further question
involves the issue of the degree to which John’s author stayed within the bounds
of a single genre, or whether he did a bit of genre-bending as may have suited
19 See here the engagement between Burridge and J. K. Riches, where the concern that
seeing the Gospels as bioi may diminish an appreciation for form-critical scholarship regarding
the histories of Gospel traditions as argued by K. L. Schmidt and others (Burridge, What Are the
Gospels?, 284–85). In my own analysis of gospel historiography (Fourth Gospel and the Quest
for Jesus, 175–90), a more nuanced approach to Jesus remembered in bi-optic perspective is
offered.
20 Thus the relevance of Burridge’s essay regarding the ethical teaching of Jesus in the
Gospel of John: “Imitating Jesus: An Inclusive Approach to the Ethics of the Historical Jesus
and John’s Gospel,” in John, Jesus, and History, vol. 2: Aspects of Historicity in the Fourth Gospel,
ed. P. N. Anderson, F. Just, and T. Thatcher, ECL 2, SymS 44 (Atlanta: SBL, 2009), 281–90, 290:
“Finally, John’s careful portrait of how Jesus treated individuals and the mixed, inclusive nature
of his community form the perfect backdrop for his ultimately mimetic purpose in writing this
biographical narrative. In their own distinctive ways, the three Synoptic writers, Paul, and the
Fourth Evangelist are all concerned that we should follow Jesus’ example of self-sacrificial love
within a mixed, inclusive community of others who are also responding to his call and reaching
out to his world. In this respect, there is clear coherence between the ethical concerns of John’s
Gospel and the activity of the historical Jesus.”
21 See, for instance, the larger discussions over genre classifications regarding ancient lit-
erature, with extensive implications for Gospel and Jesus studies: J. M. Smith, Why Βίος? On the
Relationship between Gospel Genre and Implied Audiences, LNTS 518 (London: Bloomsbury
T&T Clark, 2015). See also E. W. Klink III, ed., The Audience of the Gospels: The Origin and
Function of the Gospels in Early Christianity, LNTS 353 (London: T&T Clark, 2010), 153–66;
and A. W. Pitts, History, Biography, and the Genre of Luke-Acts: An Exploration of Literary Di-
vergence in Greek Narrative Discourse, BibInt 177 (Leiden: Brill, 2019).
his narrative style and interests. On this point, the caution of Harry W. Attridge
is indeed worth remembering: the Gospel of John is not “just like” anything
else.22 Therefore, while Burridge’s analysis indeed grants license for seeing
John’s narrative within the genre of ancient biographical narrative, one must
still inquire how the particular operations of the evangelist reflect the rhetorical
interests of the narrator.23 After all, there is no such thing as non-rhetorical his-
toriography; even to reference an incident as “historical” (or not) is itself is a
rhetorical claim. The question for Johannine analysis involves the focus on how
John’s material is crafted so as to convey a distinctive presentation of Jesus and
his ministry for the needs of emerging audiences.
C. Form-Critical Questions: John’s Confessional

Prologue, Biographical Narrative, Discourse
Material, and Dialogical Engagements
In performing a genre-critical analysis of the Fourth Gospel, even though the

overall narrative would have been recognized as a bios, or a biographical narra-
tive, it possesses several other forms of literature within that genre.
First, John’s hymnic prologue reflects a confessional response to its narrated
story of Jesus, as do the first three verses of the first Johannine Epistle, developed
as a christological hymn that has been repackaged around the original begin-
ning of the narrative, featuring the witness of John the baptizer. John’s other-
wise mundane story of Jesus is thus given a cosmic kick start, but its original
beginning was more like that of Mark, augmenting the Markan narrative with
the reports of the early ministry of Jesus before John was thrown into prison
(John 3:24, contra Mark 1:14). The cosmic and preexistent thrust of the Johan-
nine prologue, however, should not detract from the mundane and chronotopic
features of the narrative, as its cultic form and distinctive vocabulary evidence a
somewhat distinctive origin and development. Put succinctly: the hymnic and
confessional character of John 1:1–5, 9–14, and 16–18 does not diminish the
bios-genre character of the rest of the Johannine narrative; it simply reflects the
community’s reception, embrace, and confessional affirmation of what has been
22 H. W. Attridge, “Genre Bending in the Fourth Gospel,” JBL 121 (2002): 3–21. On the
question of relations between genres, see J. R. Martin and D. Rose, Genre Relations: Mapping
Culture (London: Equinox, 2008).
23 See the important collection edited by K. B. Larsen, The Gospel of John as Genre Mosaic,
SANt 3 (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 2015). See also the survey of the literature by
H. W. Attridge, “The Gospel of John: Genre Matters?,” ibid., 27–45, who concludes (30): “In
sum, even when there are not established and putatively normative genres at play, there may
well be literary models with some expected features with which authors of a particular work
may be interacting, in much the same way as classical poets and Hellenistic novelists interacted
with the genres that supposedly governed their literary worlds.”
seen and heard, performed from the beginning (cf. 1 John 1:1–3), crafted as an
experientially engaging introit to the finalized Johannine narrative as it was cir-
culated and performed among the churches.24
Second, three other forms of material are also found within the Johannine
narrative, but rather than betraying a diachronic history of development, they
reflect the combination of forms within it. The Johannine signs of Jesus are
crafted to demonstrate apologetically that Jesus is the Jewish Messiah – the five
signs of Jesus in John’s first edition cohere with the five Books of Moses – and
these are precisely the signs not found in Mark.25 There is no evidence, however,
of the Johannine signs originating from alien, non-Johannine sources. They
simply reflect a chronological and geographical augmentation of Mark, as the
first two numerated signs reference the early ministry of Jesus before the account
of Mark 1 (John 2:11; 4:54), and the signs in Jerusalem and Bethany fill out the
southern ministry of Jesus as a complement to Mark’s Galilean narrative (John
5:1–15; 9:1–41; 11:1–45).26 The origin of the theological tension regarding
John’s ambivalent presentation of the signs thus resides in the evangelist’s own
dialectical thinking, as well as his dialectical engagement of prevalent Synoptic
presentations of the same. There is no stylistic, theological, or contextual ev-
idence for either a sēmeia source or a Signs Gospel underlying John’s story of
Jesus.27
Neither is there any evidence of the Johannine discourse material having an
alien origin or having developed separately from the Johannine signs. If any-
thing, they show a good deal of inextricable development within the Johannine
tradition, with Jesus-signs expanding into discourses and Jesus-pronouncements
confirmed by signs. On this matter, Martyn’s religionsgeschichtlich inferences of
a clear break between the evangelist’s ambivalent employment of an imagined
non-Johannine tradition are totally unfounded.28 John’s signs and discourses are
24 See especially J. M. Smith, “Genre, Sub-Genre and Questions of Audience: A Proposed
Typology for Greco-Roman Biography,” JGRChJ 4 (2004): 184–216. Along these lines, see the
overview of the issue by K. B. Larsen, “Introduction: The Gospel of John as Genre Mosaic,” in
idem, Gospel of John as Genre Mosaic, 13–24. See also S. Auken, “Contemporary Genre Studies:
An Interdisciplinary Conversation with Johannine Scholarship,” ibid., 47–66.
25 For a more detailed analysis of these issues, see Anderson, “John and Mark”; idem,
“Mark, John, and Answerability.”
26 These moves are corroborated by Matthew, who references the healings Jesus had per-
formed on the blind and lame folk in Jerusalem’s temple area (Matt 21:14); plus locating the
Capernaum healing from afar (similar to the “second sign” in John’s ordering, John 4:46–54)
has it occurring just prior to the first miracles of Jesus recorded in Mark 1 (Matt 8:5–17).
27 R. Bultmann, The Gospel of John: A Commentary, ed. R. W. N. Hoare and J. K. Riches,
trans. G. R. Beasley-Murray (Oxford: Blackwell, 1971); repr. JohMS 1 (Eugene, OR: Wipf &
Stock, 2014). For a detailed analysis of all of Bultmann’s stylistic, theological, and contextual
evidence for disparate sources underlying the Gospel of John, see Anderson, Christology of the
Fourth Gospel, 70–136.
28 Contra J. L. Martyn’s analysis in “Source Criticism and Religionsgeschichte in the Fourth
Gospel,” Perspective: A Journal of Pittsburgh Theological Seminary 11/1–2 (1970): 247–73; repr.
intrinsically connected together by dramatic dialogues, as discussants ask ques-

tions or make inquiring statements, engaging or leading to expansive discourses
inviting belief in Jesus and his agency from the Father. Linking form analyses to
individuated sources, though, and from thence inferring disparate histories of
origin and development underlying Gospel traditions, is a flawed venture, espe-
cially when applied to the Johannine tradition. The point is that John’s story of
Jesus as a bios includes a number of forms, or even sub-genres of material, so bios
as a genre must be seen as an inclusive rubric rather than an individuated one.
While the Johannine signs and discourses are indeed distinctive, however,
the Johannine dialogues with Jesus evoke a good deal of intrigue. Indeed, the
overall Johannine narrative is entirely polyvalent, and a number of dialogical
operations must be considered critically, lest it be misconstrued and misunder-
stood.29 Within the polyvalent presentation of the Johannine dialogues, two
modes of operation thus invite special focus: revelation and rhetoric.30 Invari-
ably, when Jesus, the Scriptures, or a divine agent speaks, acts, or is referenced in
the Johannine narrative, this calls for a response of faith to the divine initiative.
When people are receptive and/or believe, the result is life-producing; when
people are unreceptive and/or refuse to believe, the outcome is negative and
death-producing. In Bultmannian terms, the world has failed the test in the
dualism of decision. However, when the initiative shifts to a character or group
within the narrative, invariably discussants are exposed as miscomprehending.
Again, with Bakhtin, stupidity in narrative is always rhetorical; it rips the
masks off of characters, and the discussants’ failure to understand is crafted to
address the needs of audiences and targets within the evolving Johannine situ-
ation.31 Thus, the Johannine dialogues and discourses not only convey the con-
in idem, Gospel of John in Christian History (rev. ed.), 148–80, there is no evidence of non-
Johannine material underlying the final rendering of John’s narrative. Rather, signs, dialogues,
and discourses are intextricably linked within John’s story of Jesus. For instance, the feeding of
the multitude expands into the “bread of life” discourse (John 6:1–15 → 27–58), and the healing
of the blind man leads into Jesus’s pronouncements about the blindness of those who claim to
see (9:6–7 → 39–41). Conversely, the pronouncement of Jesus that the royal official’s son will
live, he is made well, even from afar (4:50 → 51–53), and following Jesus’s pronouncement that
Lazarus will live, he is summoned forth from the tomb just a few verses later (11:23 → 38–44).
29 J. Thomaskutty, Dialogue in the Book of Signs: A Polyvalent Analysis of John 1:19–12:50,
BibInt 136 (Leiden: Brill, 2015); Anderson, “From One Dialogue to Another.” See also the pro-
posed epistemological origins of all 36 of John’s analyzed riddles in Anderson, Riddles of the
Fourth Gospel, 157–72.
30 For analyses of John 6, see Anderson, Christology of the Fourth Gospel, 104–6; idem, “Sitz
im Leben of the Johannine Bread of Life Discourse,” 17–57.
31 Bakhtin, Dialogic Imagination, 403. See also Anderson, Christology of the Fourth Gospel,
167–251. Thus, despite Bauckham’s and Burridge’s good point that the canonical Gospels were
likely crafted and circulated to serve broader audiences rather than a particular community,
each of the evangelists also has particular targets being addressed within his account, and
contextual realities cannot but inform a more textured understanding of how Gospel texts
developed, were crafted, were circulated, and were received. Contextual issues are especially
tent of the saving-revealing divine initiative; it is typified within the discourses

themselves. Likewise, the frailty of human initiative and creaturely scaffolding is
not only referenced in the story; it is dramatized in the crafting of the Johannine
narrative. As John’s hymnic confession asserts (John 1:9–13):
The true light, which enlightens everyone, was coming into the world. He was in the
world, and the world came into being through him; yet the world did not know him. He
came to what was his own, and his own people did not accept him. But to all who received
him, who believed in his name, he gave power to become children of God, who were born,
not of blood or of the will of the flesh or of the will of man, but of God. (NRSV)
D. Ancient Dialogues and the Johannine Narrative

While the Johannine signs are somewhat similar to the miracles of Jesus in the
Synoptics, though different, the Johannine dialogues and discourses are more
distinctive. As such, they bear an interesting resemblance to the dialogues of
Plato, despite being couched within a biographical narrative. The dramatic
character of John’s story of Jesus also fits within the genre of a Hellenistic or
Jewish drama,32 but it also bears the marks of Hellenistic historiography in
referencing particulars of time, space, and identity while also claiming eyewit-
ness derivation.33 Such does not imply Johannine historical veracity or accuracy,
however; it simply notes John’s formal overlapping with contemporary works
of the day, suggesting the sorts of ways it would have been heard and read. And,
if second- through fourth-century readings of the Fourth Gospel are any indi-
cation of its perception as received tradition, it certainly was understood to be
the theologically developed narration of an eyewitness accounting of the works
and words of Jesus. The Muratorian Fragment, for instance, sees John’s story of
Jesus written as an alternative rendering to those of the Synoptics, and Tatian’s
Diatessaron seeks to harmonize John’s story of Jesus with the Synoptic accounts
as an overall historical portrayal.34
in play for understanding the particulars of the Johannine Gospel’s development, given its dis-
tinctives among the gospels and its socio-religious connectedness with the Johannine Epistles
and Apocalypse.
32 In addition to Burridge’s work, see also parallels between John and Mark, with reference
to the work of M. E. Vines, The Problem of Markan Genre: The Gospel of Mark and the Jewish
Novel, AcBib 3 (Leiden: Brill, 2002).
33 See H. W. Attridge, “John, Testimony, and Historigraphy” (paper presented to the John,
Jesus, and History group at the Annual Meeting of the SBL, New Orleans, November 21, 2009),
which cites parallels between such ancient historians and writers as Thucydides, Polybius,
and Lucian and the Gospel of John, while also wondering if the Johannine evangelist might
be playing with eyewitness genres and historicity appeals. Then again, see the attempt to re-
cover eyewitness memory behind the traditions of the four canonical gospels in R. Bauckham,
Jesus and the Eyewitnesses: The Gospels as Eyewitness Testimony (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans,
2006).
34 On 2nd-c. treatments of John, see the essays in T. Rasimus, ed., The Legacy of John:
Given the fact, however, of John’s pervasively mundane presentation of Jesus,

combined with its highly theological thrust, the question persists as to whether
the Fourth Gospel is a historicized drama or a dramatized history. In the view of
Bultmann and some other scholars, John represents the latter, argued on the basis
of parallels with the Life of Apollonius by Philostratus.35 How is it known, though,
that nonsymbolic, illustrative details were added to the narratives of Mark and
John as mimetic imitations of reality rather than reflections of incidental features
of eyewitness recollection? After all, if Matthew and Luke assumedly also sought
to render graphic and engaging narratives, why do they characteristically omit
names, places, numbers, and details in their uses of Mark? They add units of
material and move things around to suit their interests, but overall, they omit
incidental details rather than adding them.36 Thus, if the Johannine narrator
operated in ways characteristic of his closest parallels – the Synoptics – John is
more of a dramatized history than a historicized drama.
That being the case, whether or not dialogues between Jesus and his discus-
sants in the Johannine narrative reflect historical conversations is less significant
than noting their rhetorical construction in the furthering of the narrative. Like-
wise in the cases of Plato’s and Xenophon’s crafting of dialogues with Socrates,
one interest might be the life and teachings of the master, Socrates. More tell-
ing, however, is the ways that dramatized dialogues reflect constellations of
traditional memory, authors’ intentions, and ways they were crafted to address
the perceived needs of targeted audiences. As Xenophon was noted for more
mundane historiographic interests, and Plato was more interested in the philo-
sophical and the ideal, this comes across in their presentations of Socrates and
his discussants, which is understandable. Likewise, John’s story of Jesus not only
seeks to report what happened in the life and ministry of Jesus, but it also seeks
to convey the meaning of his ministry and teachings to later audiences. Thus,
John’s presentation of the divine-human dialogue – which revelation invites – by
means of crafting dialogues with Jesus in the narrative, engages emerging au-
diences dialogically, as conventionalities are exposed and targeted masks are torn
Second-Century Reception of the Fourth Gospel, NovTSup 132 (Leiden: Brill, 2009); J. B. Light-
foot, The Gospel of St. John: A Newly Discovered Commentary, ed. B. Witherington III and T. D.
Still, asst. J. M. Hagen, Lightfoot Legacy Set 2 (Downers Grove, IL: IVP, 2015).
35 See, for instance, C. W. Votaw “The Gospels and Contemporary Biographies,” AJT 19
(1915): 45–73.
36 See my analyses of John 6 and 18–19 – the two passages closest to the Synoptic accounts
in Christology of the Fourth Gospel, 97–104, 170–93; idem, “Aspects of Interfluentiality between
John and the Synoptics: John 18–19 as a Case Study,” in The Death of Jesus in the Fourth Gospel,
ed. G. Van Belle, BETL 200 (Leuven: Leuven University Press; Dudley, MA: Peeters, 2007),
711–28; P. N. Anderson, “Gradations of Symbolization in the Johannine Passion Narrative:
Control Measures for Theologizing Speculation Gone Awry,” in Imagery in the Gospel of John:
Terms, Forms, Themes, and Theology of Johannine Figurative Language, ed. J. Frey, J. G. van der
Watt, and R. Zimmermann, WUNT 200 (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2006), 157–94.
away. Again, within John’s polyvalent story of Jesus, dialogical realities function
on several levels, so as to further the narrative interests of the evangelist.
E. Development within the Johannine

Dialectical Situation
One of the most significant developments in Johannine research over the last half-
century involves plausible reconstructions of the Johannine situation, catapulted
into critical consideration by Raymond Brown and J. Louis Martyn.37 Whereas
Martyn threw into sharp relief the dialectical relationship with the local syn-
agogue in the post-70 CE situation of relocated Johannine Christianity, Brown’s
appreciation for a multiplicity of engagements with different audiences fits the
textual evidence better. He draws into the background pre-70 CE engagements
with Judean leaders in Jerusalem and followers of John the Baptist, and he also
notes later engagements with other Christians, including traveling docetizing
ministers and hierarchical aspirants. What he leaves underdeveloped, however,
is an appreciation for the hardship that must have been faced by believers among
the diaspora churches during and following the reign of Domitian (81–96 CE),
who required either a tithe tax for Jews in the regions of the Roman Empire (the
fiscus Judaicus) and emperor-laud for the rest. Jewish followers of Jesus, thus,
if distanced from the local synagogue, might not have had to pay the Roman
temple tax, but they would be liable to express emperor laud, either by offering
incense or confessions of Caesar as lord, or both, lest they be charged with dis-
loyalty. The Pliny-Trajan correspondence a couple of decades later alludes to this
as an established practice in the region.38
When the Johannine Epistles are viewed in the light of the Gospel of John
and the Epistles of Ignatius, it is clear that within settings of the mission
churches, dialogues with Judaizers and docetizers are in play within the context
of Roman imperialism, to which Ignatius (and plausibly Diotrephes of 3 John
9–10) puts forward hierarchical solutions to addressing centrifugal tensions
within emerging Christian communities.39 Along these lines, two other per-
37 See especially Brown, Community of the Beloved Disciple; Martyn, History and Theology
in the Fourth Gospel.
38 Pliny the Younger, Ep. 10.96–97. See R. J. Cassidy, John’s Gospel in New Perspective:
Christology and the Realities of Roman Power (Maryknoll, NY: Orbis, 1992), 2nd ed., JohMS 3
(Eugene, OR: Wipf & Stock, 2015).
39 Note the ways that the Johannine Elder calls for loving one another as a means of ad-
dressing centrifugal tensions with centripetal exhortations: P. N. Anderson, “Identity and Con-
gruence: The Ethics of Integrity in the Johannine Epistles,” in Biblical Ethics and Application:
Purview, Validity, and Relevance of Biblical Texts in Ethical Discourse, ed. R. Zimmermann and
S. Joubert, Kontexte und Normen neutestamentlicher Ethik 9, WUNT 384 (Tübingen: Mohr
Siebeck, 2017), 331–51.
spectives are also flawed. First, imagined Johannine sectarianism as put forward
by Wayne A. Meeks is misguided, as Johannine Christianity appears to be strad-
dling the interests of both synagogue engagements and Gentile believers. That
being the case, Johannine Christianity would have been less sectarian than its
parental Judaism, and exhortations to “love not the world” were leveraged to
move Gentile believers toward greater adherence to standards of Jewish faith
and practice. Second, with Bauckham and Burridge, while John’s story of Jesus
was written from a grounded situation, it was not written to a particular com-
munity as a singular target. Even the first Johannine Epistle and the Johannine
Apocalypse were written as circulars to be received among the churches of the
region,40 and John’s story of Jesus not only reflects familiarity with at least Mark,
but it was crafted for reception among the churches as an alternative biography
of Jesus.41
Therefore, over the seven or so decades of the development and crafting of
John’s story of Jesus, no fewer than six or seven dialogues with differing members
of the Johannine audience are discernible. Each of these exchanges also reflects
particular crises or disputed issues, and while they are largely sequential in their
emergence, they are also somewhat overlapping. Put otherwise, a particular con-
troversy never totally disappears; it simply is displaced or crowded out by other,
more pressing ones. And, while at least two editions of the Johannine narrative
are highly plausible, with the Epistles being written between them – arguably by
final compiler after the death of the evangelist – John represents an autonomous
tradition that is not dependent on other Gospels or sources for its material. That
being the case, we have in the Fourth Gospel a synchronicity of tradition devel-
oped within a diachronicity of situation, and following are the three phases of
Johannine Christianity, with at least two crises or dialogical engagements within
each.
An Outline of the Johannine Situation in Longitudinal Perspective42
Period I. The Palestine Period: The Johannine tradition develops (ca. 30–70 CE)
Crisis A Dealing with north/south tensions (Galileans/Judeans)
Crisis B Reaching followers of John the Baptist
[The oral Johannine tradition develops]
40 P. N. Anderson, From Crisis to Christ: A Contextual Introduction to the New Testament
(Nashville: Abingdon, 2014), 339–85.
41 Thus, if we were to take two of Bauckham’s essays seriously, that the Gospel of John was
crafted for hearers of Mark (setting a few things straight here and there), and if John’s story
of Jesus is written in the form of a historical biography (putting forth historical knowledge
about the life and ministry of Jesus), then it stands to reason that at least one of the evangelist’s
interests involved providing something of a historical augmentation of and modest correction
to Mark. Cf. R. Bauckham, “Historiographical Characteristics of the Gospel of John,” NTS 53
(2007): 17–36; and idem, “John for Readers of Mark.”
42 This outline is developed more fully in a number of places, including Anderson,
“Bakhtin’s Dialogism,” 139–40; idem, Fourth Gospel and the Quest for Jesus, 211–14.
Period II. The Asia Minor Period 1: The forging of community (ca. 70–85 CE)
Crisis A Engaging local Jewish family and friends
Crisis B Dealing with the local Roman presence
[The first edition of the Johannine Gospel is prepared, ca. 80–85 CE]
Period III. The Asia Minor Period 2: Dialogues between communities (ca. 85–100 CE)
Crisis A Engaging docetizing Gentile Christians and their teachings
Crisis B Engaging Christian institutionalizing tendencies (Diotrephes and his kin)
Crisis C Engaging dialectically Christian presentations of Jesus and his ministry
(actually reflecting a running dialogue over all three periods)
[The Epistles are written by the Johannine Elder, 85–95 CE, who then finalizes and
circulates the testimony of the Beloved Disciple after his death, ca. 100 CE]
As the seventh set of issues involved Johannine-Synoptic engagements regarding

Jesus and his ministry, it spanned all three of the above phases (30–100 CE).
While John’s first stages of composition sought to augment, complement, and
correct Mark’s story of Jesus, John’s later material seems to be in dialogue with
Matthean perspectives on the character and operations of the church. Some
distinctively Johannine features are also found in other Gospels, so influence
appears to have traveled in more than one direction. And, some aspects of
Johannine-Synoptic engagements may have operated in different ways, in-
cluding familiarity with performed narratives, oral and written traditions, and
even secondary orality. Therefore, in crafting the dialogues with Jesus in ways
that both clarify the Revealer’s mission and message, the evangelist also engages
evolving audiences in a set of imaginary dialogues with Jesus, whereby creaturely
notions and the foibles of human initiative are thereby exposed and set straight.
As Richard Burridge affirms in his essay on genres and audiences,
The elements of surprise and irony, tragedy and comedy in the Fourth Gospel, together
with the multileveled functioning of its text, also imply sophisticated knowledge and usage.
Thus comparison of the Gospels with bioi and other mid-range works like monographs
or treatises proves illuminating for the evangelists’ social settings and levels. The wider
circulation of such works around the ancient Mediterranean beyond their dedicatees or
author’s immediate circle again suggests the Gospels were intended for a wider audience
than just a single community.43
F. Revelation and Rhetoric as

Two Dialogical Modes of Operation
While the Platonic dialogues comprise the most widely known of ancient narra-
tive dialogues, dialogues with Jesus in the Gospel of John operate in at least two
different ways. First, they are set within a larger narrative framework more suited
43 R. A. Burridge, “About People, for People, by People: Gospel Genre and Audiences,” in
The Gospels for All Christians, ed. R. Bauckham (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1998), 113–45,
140.
to bios-genres than formal dialogues. Second, whereas Plato’s protagonist often

takes the initiative, drawing discussants into dialogue whereby the shallowness of
their notionalities is exposed, the Johannine dialogues follow an overall pattern
whereby the initiative taken prefigures the dialogical mode being developed.
When Jesus or God’s agents (John the Baptist, the works of Jesus, Scripture, the
voice from heaven, etc.) take the initiative, human actants are called to respond
in faith to the divine initiative, which the Revealer and God’s revelatory work
effect and are. This involves a revelatory mode of dialogical operation within the
narrative.
However, when the initiative shifts to the discussant(s), reader, beware!
Ranging from partial misunderstanding-subject-to-correction to total miscom-
prehension-resulting-in-unbelief, when individuals of groups take the initiative,
a rhetorical mode of narrative operation is in play. And, interestingly, many if not
most of the Johannine dialogues can be seen to be addressing particular concerns
among targeted audiences within the evolving Johannine situation. While the
Johannine dialogues with Jesus may indeed speak to the conditions of multiple
audiences across time and space, a closer look at several examples of how some
of the dialogues would have addressed particular audiences is in order.
(1) For audiences in the first phase of the Johannine situation, the rejection of
the Galilean prophet by Judean religious leaders is challenged pointedly by dia-
logues with Jesus in Jerusalem in John 5 and 7. Jesus has already been engaged by
the Judean leaders in 2:18–20, but now they question the lame man healed on the
Sabbath and Jesus, as well. After an exchange with the healed lame man carrying
his mat on the Sabbath (5:10–15), they then challenge Jesus for performing a
healing on the Sabbath (5:16–17). This leads to his claim to authorization as
acting on behalf of the Father’s commission, rooted in Deut 18:15–22, which is
taken as a blasphemous claim to be equal to God (5:18–47). Debates with Judean
leaders over the healing on the Sabbath continue in chapter 7, and their flawed
notionalities are exposed as they reject the authenticity of Jesus’s prophetic signs
because they believe the Messiah cannot hail from Galilee but must come from
David’s village in Judea (7:40–52).
(2) In furthering the revelational mode of narrative progression, John the
Baptist serves as the prototypical witness to Jesus and his mission. John came
witnessing to the light (although he was not that light, 1:6–8), testifying that
Jesus was “before” him, even though he came after him (1:15, 30). Indeed, the
whole reason John came baptizing was to point out Jesus and to testify to his
mission (1:31), claiming that he must decrease, while Jesus must increase (3:30).
Note the two initiatives taken by discussants with John, though, and the miscom-
prehension they expose. The Judean leaders send Levites and priests from Jeru-
salem inquiring, “Who are you?” – the prophet? Elijah? – to which John replies,
“neither” (1:19–21). Rather, he fulfills the Isaianic text regarding the voice in the
wilderness preparing the way for the Lord (Isa 40:3; John 1:23). A further round
of questioning comes from John’s followers themselves, who had been put on
the spot by a Judean challenger regarding purification issues; they put the ques-
tioning into words as to whether the ministry of Jesus is legitimate or simply that
of a competitor (3:25–26). The questioned authenticity of the ministries of John
and Jesus is thus set straight by the witness of John (3:28–30) and the evangelist’s
summation of the Son’s agency from the Father (3:31–36).
(3) Following a move to Asia Minor or some other church in the Gentile
mission,44 dialogues with Jewish leaders in the inferred audience continue, but
now among local synagogues rather than in the temple precincts of Jerusalem.
Nicodemus thus stands out as a typological representative of a Jewish leader who
is intrigued by the signs Jesus performs but does not comprehend the ways of the
Spirit or God’s love (3:1–17). Likewise, the Jerusalem-based leaders objecting to
the first Sabbath healing are judged by Jesus for their cultic legalism rather than
having God’s love in their hearts (5:42); thus, the presentation of Nicodemus
would have addressed religious authorities in Asia Minor as well as in Palestine.
While exposing his miscomprehension in taking the initiative at the beginning
of John 3, however, Brown overestimates his cryptic identity in coming to Jesus
by night, and thus representing “crypto-Christians” imagined in the local Jewish
synagogues of Asia Minor.45 More tellingly, Nicodemus actually comes around
as a defender of Jesus against the Pharisees (7:49–51), and he even helps with the
burial of Jesus after the crucifixion (19:39–40). Therefore, Nicodemus represents
a transitional figure – one whose intrigue and initial miscomprehension gives
way to convincement – as he later stands up for Jesus as one of his followers. Later
in the narrative, though, we see the ascendency of the Pharisees as antagonists
among the questioners of Jesus, and consternation over keeping the Mosaic Law
comes to the forefront of the dialogues. Already in John 7, the Pharisees take
44 I agree with Brown, here, that there is no better setting in which to envision the Johannine
community than the unanimous 2nd-c. identification of Ephesus and its environs as that site.
While some scholars connect the Logos theology of Philo with the Johannine worship hymn,
Alexandria offers no superior setting over the unanimous reports by Eusebius that John the
apostle settled in Ephesus and was buried there in the beginning of Trajan’s reign (98–117 CE).
Note also that, according to Acts 18:24–28, Apollos (of Alexandria!) is ministering in Ephesus,
and that his followers knew the baptism of John but did not know there was a Holy Spirit.
His ministry could thus have introduced Logos theology to Asia Minor (cf. also Heb 1:1–4;
note also the treatment of the divine Logos in the earlier work of Heraclitus of Ephesus), and
the Johannine witness to John-the-Baptist-adherents could have extended beyond Palestine to
include Asia Minor. Hence, John 3:5 does not reference the requirement of water purification;
it asserts that water purification cannot be enough, as being born of the Spirit is itself essential
(as narrated in Acts 19:1–7).
45 Brown, Community of the Beloved Disciple, 71–73. In my view, this aspect of Brown’s
overall situation theory is less than compelling, as I argue in “The Community that Raymond
Brown Left Behind: Reflections on the Dialectical Johannine Situation,” in Communities in
Dispute: Current Scholarship on the Johannine Epistles, ed. P. N. Anderson and R. A. Culpepper,
ECL 13 (Atlanta: SBL, 2014), 47–93; also published on The Bible and Interpretation (September
2013), http://www.bibleinterp.com/articles/2013/09/and378030.shtml.
the lead in the narrative, questioning Jesus’s authorization and challenging him
as followers of Moses.46 In John 9:28 the Judean leaders likewise claim to be
followers of Moses, and taking the initiative in John 10:24–39, they seek to put
Jesus to death, accusing him of blasphemy for making himself God. Ironically,
they fail to appreciate the authenticity of his Mosaic agency, as his proleptic word
comes true, confirming such.47
(4) While the Roman presence in Galilee was palpable during the ministry
of Jesus, following the destruction of Jerusalem, Roman measures were taken
against Jewish populations in the larger Mediterranean world in at least two
ways. First, the fiscus Judaicus was levied under Vespasian in 70 CE, requiring a
temple tax (two drachmas – the amount of the Jerusalem temple tax) to be paid
by all Jews everywhere to the temple of Jupiter Capitolinus in Rome. Second,
Domitian (81–96 CE) required all others to offer emperor laud as a means in-
stilling acquiescence across the Roman empire. The confession of Thomas in
John 20:28 (“My lord and my God!”) bears an unmistakable anti-Domitian ring,
as dominus et deus noster (“our Lord and God”) is what Domitian required his
subjects to confess.48 Within such a context, presenting Pilate as claiming to have
all authority, but then begging the crowd to let him let Jesus go free – which
they refuse to do – exposes the Roman prefect as the “impotent potentate” (John
18:28–19:38). Such a presentation would have played well within the earlier
Johannine tradition, but it also delivers a striking rhetorical thrust during the
reign of Domitian.
(5) As the number of Jesus’s adherents and communities grew throughout
the Mediterranean world, engagements emerged between Johannine believers
and other Christian groups. Within the Johannine Epistles, traveling ministers
are perceived as a threat by the Elder, who labels them “Antichrists” and signals
the identifying feature of their false teaching as denying that Jesus came in the
flesh (1 John 4:1–3; 2 John 7). While some scholars have assumed they were
Gnostics, such speculation is unwarranted. Docetism is closer to the mark, but
the attraction of Docetism was the practical implications of a non-suffering Jesus
rather than its theological content. Especially under the reign of Domitian, ex-
hortations to not love “the world” addressed an acute set of assimilative issues,
whereby Gentile believers were called to forego participation in pagan festivities
46 The Pharisees challenge Jesus especially in John 7–10 (7:32, 45–48; 8:13; 9:13, 15, 16,
40), although they had been active earlier (1:24; 4:1), and Nicodemus was a Pharisee (3:1).
They later join forces with the priests in arresting Jesus (7:32, 45; 11:47, 57; 18:3), as they are
threatened by the popularism of his prophetic signs. In the three-edition schema of U. C. von
Wahlde, he infers a difference of editions signaled by the change in Jesus’s discussants – the
Ioudaioi, the priests, and the Pharisees; see The Gospel and Letters of John, 3 vols., ECC (Grand
Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 2010).
47 Anderson, “Having-Sent-Me-Father.” Note how the word of Jesus invariably comes true,
fulfilling the Prophet-like-Moses schema of Deut 18:15–22 (John 13:19; 14:29; 18:9, 32).
48 Suetonius, Dom. 13.2.
and practices.49 From a Docetist’s perspective, if Jesus did not suffer, neither are
his followers required to so the same. That being the case, this explains why the
disciples are scandalized by the “hard saying” of Jesus in John 6:51–58, and why
some of them abandon him (vv. 60–66). The hard-to-swallow content of Jesus’s
invitation to ingest his flesh and blood is not a reference to a requisite rite. Parallel
to the reference to sharing the “cup” and “baptism” of Jesus in Mark 10:38–39,
the requirement is faithfulness in martyrdom – if required by the truth – the way
of the cross and costly discipleship versus worldly assimilation and the denial
of Jesus and his community before human audiences. Thus, dialogues with Je-
sus’s disciples in John 6 serve an antidocetic function, addressing assimilative
tendencies in the later Johannine situation.50
(6) If John’s finalization and circulation is intended for all audiences, howev-
er, it not only serves to augment and set straight a few things in Mark, as does
the first edition; its final presentation also performs a bit of harmonization with
the Synoptics while also engaging later Petrine developments dialectically. Con-
tra Brown, the case is stronger for inferring an intra-apostolic corrective than a
critique of rising institutionalism from outside of the Christian mainstream.51 If
the primacy-loving Diotrephes of 3 John 9–10 is appropriating Petrine hierar-
chy in ways unfriendly to Johannine Christianity (excluding Demetrius and
expelling his own members who might offer hospitality to Johannine traveling
ministers), the interest of the Elder in finalizing and circulating the Johannine
evangel must have involved setting the record straight regarding how the church
49 While all Gnostics were Docetists, not all Docetists were Gnostics. When compared, for
instance, with the adversaries mentioned by Ignatius, in addition to his concerns over Roman
pressures and his impending martyrdom, the call to faithful solidarity and the willingness to
suffer if need be – martyrological faithfulness – is what the Ignatian and Johannine appeals for
unity involved. Cf. Anderson, Christology of the Fourth Gospel, 110–36.
50 Note the similarity of the content between John 6:51–70 and Mark 8:31–38. Both pas-
sages call for followers of Jesus to be willing to embrace the way of the cross, featuring Peter’s
role in different ways and with different language, but the corroborative impression on the
subject of martyrological faithfulness is impressive. Anderson, Christology of the Fourth Gospel,
194–250.
51 While Brown changed his mind on the identity of the Fourth Evangelist between the
publication of The Gospel according to John: Introduction, Translation, and Notes, 2 vols., AB
29, 29A (Garden City, NY: Doubleday, 1966, 1970) and his Community of the Beloved Dis-
ciple (1979), he overstates Schnackenburg’s movement in this direction. While an eyewitness
need not have been one of the twelve apostles for the first-hand claims regarding the Johannine
tradition’s veracity to be substantiated (John 19:34–35; 21:23–24; 1 John 1:1–3), this does not
prove that the evangelist was not one of the twelve. Not necessarily does not imply necessarily
not. Given an overlooked 1st-c. clue to John’s authorship, where John the Apostle is presented as
uttering a Johannine cliché in the composite statement of Acts 4:19–20 (Anderson, Christology
of the Fourth Gospel, 274–77), it may be stronger critically to see the juxtaposition of Peter and
the Beloved disciple by the Johannine compiler (the Elder) as a historical corrective to rising
institutionalism in the late first-century situation (ibid, 220–50); P. N. Anderson, “‘You Have the
Words of Eternal Life!’ Is Peter Presented as Returning the Keys of the Kingdom to Jesus in John
6:68?,” Neot 41 (2007): 6–41.
is to be led by Christ in post-resurrection consciousness. Thus, not only does

Jesus lay out a vision for how his followers will continue to be led by the work
of the Holy Spirit (available to all believers, not just a hierarchical few), but in
his dialogue with Peter in John 6:67–70, Peter is presented as “returning the
keys of the kingdom” to Jesus – where they belonged, all along. “You have the
words of eternal life,” exclaims Peter, and if Matt 16:17–19 is in view among
contemporary audiences – Ignatian and otherwise – it cannot be seen any other
way than as an ideological corrective to rising institutionalism in the late first-
century situation.
(7) A seventh set of dialogical engagements with John’s audiences spanned
all three periods and the crises within them. It involved dialogical engagements
with Synoptic traditions – especially Mark’s and Matthew’s – even if some
intertraditional contacts might have involved non-written engagements, or even
secondary orality.52 Thus, in setting the crowd straight in their valuation of the
feeding miracle, people have missed the revelatory sign-ificance of the feeding
because they “ate and were satisfied” (the alimentary valuation of the feeding in
all five Synoptic accounts: Matt 14:20; 15:27; Mark 6:42; 8:8; Luke 9:17; cf. John
6:26). In the human-initiative exposure of their miscomprehension regarding
the prophetic signs of Jesus, crowd members sail from Tiberias, continue back
across the lake to Capernaum, and then ask a deflective question: “When did
you get here?” Whereas Bultmann saw the non sequitur answer of Jesus to the
crowd as an indication of an editorial seam, it actually reflects the evangelist em-
ployment of local irony, as their real and hidden question is, “When’s lunch?”
Jesus thus infers their hidden question, which he answers correctively and
pointedly. In addition to correcting Mark’s semeiology, chronology, and secrecy
motif, John’s Jesus also challenges the parousia prediction of Mark 9:1 in the
final dialogue with Peter. Whereas Peter inquires about the fate of the Beloved
Disciple with a bit of invidious concern in John 21:20–21, the narrator clarifies
that Jesus never promised that the Beloved Disciple (or any of the remaining
eyewitnesses) would live until he came again; such was misunderstood from
the beginning and circulated wrongly by Peter and others (vv. 22–23).53 Thus,
correcting flawed understandings of what Jesus really meant, did, and said –
among some of the prevalent traditions – is declared to be one of the reasons
John’s story of Jesus is preserved and circulated, in addition to augmenting the
Markan traditions.
52 P. N. Anderson, “Interfluential, Formative, and Dialectical: A Theory of John’s Relation to

the Synoptics,” in Für und Wider die Priorität des Johannesevangeliums: Symposion in Salzburg
am 10. März 2000, ed. P. L. Hofrichter, Theologische Texte und Studien 9 (Hildesheim: Georg
Olms, 2002), 19–58; see also Anderson, Fourth Gospel and the Quest for Jesus, 101–26.
53 See Anderson, “John and Mark”; idem, “Mark, John, and Answerability.”
G. John 9: A Case Study in John’s

Polyvalent Dialogism
Whereas Lou Martyn launched a formidable advance in Johannine studies

over the last half-century in elucidating at least one set of audience-related
engagements within the evangelist’s setting, tensions with local synagogue
leaders in the late first-century Johannine situation are not the only set of issues
involved. Indeed, John 6 illumines no fewer than four or five acute issues being
addressed also in the other Johannine writings, and if the larger scenario of John
9:1–10:21 is considered, at least two other crises, or contextual issues, are therein
addressed, not just a single set.54 Before continuing with a more inclusive multi-
level reading of this text, however, one must issue three cautions.
First, the interpreter must beware of inferring too much about the delivery
situation from the narrative alone, as the Johannine narrator is also recounting
traditional memories of events in the past. For instance, yes, Nicodemus came
to Jesus by night, but does this mean that no Judean leaders ever took an interest
in Jesus during his actual ministry, or that fear of religious leaders opposed to
Jesus took place only in a diaspora setting? One is free to argue such, but inferred
later relevance can never supplant the stated origin of a story, especially one
that is corroborated by parallel, individuated accounts.55 Therefore, as fear of
the Judean leaders in Jerusalem is reported to have been felt by the crowds, the
authorities, Joseph of Arimathea (and Nicodemus?), and the disciples (7:12–13;
12:42–43; 19:38–39; 20:19), it cannot be said that intimidation was limited only
to a post-80 CE diaspora setting within the evolving Johannine situation.
That being the case, the thesis of Jonathan Bernier, that the Johannine refer-
ences to the birkat haminim may allude to a Jerusalem-based ordinance during
the actual ministry of Jesus, throws Martyn’s two-level theory on its head.56 If
Nazarene revolutionary activism was on the Roman radar screen, and if those
hailing from Nazareth and Galilee were associated with a history of insurrection-
ism (1:46), one can appreciate the wariness of Judean leaders who, in seeking to
avoid a Roman onslaught (11:50), might have sought to avert Roman backlashes
by keeping zealotry out of local synagogues. Thus, the curse against the Nazore-
54 For full analyses of the crises addressed in John 6, with the help of the Johannine Epistles
and the letters of Ignatius, performing with John 6 what Lou Martyn achieved with John 9, see
Anderson, Christology of the Fourth Gospel, 167–250; idem, “Sitz im Leben of the Johannine
Bread of Life Discourse.”
55 Jesus is also presented in the Synoptic Gospels as healing lame and blind persons, so this
is the sort of thing he is remembered as having done, including performing healings on the Sab-
bath. More specifically, Matt 21:14 references knowledge of healings Jesus had performed on
the blind and lame people in Jerusalem’s temple area, so the originative memory of the events
recorded in John 9 goes back to Judea, not Asia Minor.
56 J. Bernier, Aposynagōgos and the Historical Jesus in John: Rethinking the Historicity of the
Johannine Expulsion Passages, BibInt 122 (Leiden: Brill, 2013).
ans may have played a role in Jerusalem, as well as later roles elsewhere, seeking
to disparage potential revolutionary uprisings, which the Romans had put down
at huge expense to the Jewish populace. Another argument for an earlier birkat is
David Instone-Brewer’s discovery of such a “curse against the heretics” levied in
Qumran, plausibly against the Sadducees in Jerusalem, as a pre-70 CE criticism
of their collaboration with the Romans against the Jewish people.57 Thus, early
tensions between Judean leaders and followers of the Galilean prophet from
Nazareth are likely referenced in John 9, not simply later ones.58
Second, Martyn’s inference of a bifurcation between (non-Johannine and
alien) history and (assumedly later Johannine) theology has no evidentiary war-
rant. Given that the evidence for the source-critical inferences of Bultmann is
completely lacking, and that Fortna fails to consider the likelihood that the evan-
gelist was a dialectical thinker who presented the signs of Jesus in theologically
tensive ways, this erodes also the inference of an earlier Signs Gospel by Robert
Fortna, upon which Martyn’s two-level theory is based.59 Thus, Martyn’s appeal
to a literarily diachronic history-and-theology divide in the Johannine narrative
is critically flawed overall. Theologization is present in the crafting of John’s
story of Jesus, but it is neither later-only chronologically nor source-countering
theologically. Further, he fails to note the clearly antidocetic thrusts and ecclesial
correctives of the later Johannine narrative (echoed in the Johannine Epistles) as
well as other issues being addressed by the narrator. Yes, socio-religious tensions
are real in the Johannine rendering of Jesus and his ministry, but there is no
basis for assuming a later slanting of an earlier narrative devoid of controversy in
Jerusalem, full only of sweetness and light. After all, Jesus was killed in Jerusalem
at the hand of the Romans, and his being at odds also with the politico-religious
leaders in Jerusalem receives corroborative support in the Synoptics, as well.
Third, in 2004 a second and larger Pool of Siloam was discovered, not
far from the temple in Jerusalem, with coins from the first century CE found
at the bottom.60 It had likely been covered over since the Roman destruction
of Jerusalem in 70 CE, and it was a Jewish purification pool – a mikveh – that
57 D. Instone-Brewer, “The Eighteen Benedictions and the Minim before 70 CE,” JTS 54
(2003): 25–44. According to Instone-Brewer, “The wording of the curse of the Minim appears
to criticise the Sadducees for their rich lifestyle and their offering of incense in the Temple in a
wrong way, though it was later applied to all Jewish heretics.” Thus, the birkat functioned earlier
as an intra-Jewish critique of the Jerusalem priesthood, and it was likely levied in a number
of directions by different Jewish leaders and communities, not just against Johannine Jesus
adherents.
58 P. N. Anderson, “Anti-Semitism and Religious Violence as Flawed Interpretations of the
Gospel of John,” in John and Judaism: A Contested Relationship in Context, ed. R. A. Culpepper
and P. N. Anderson, RBS 87 (Atlanta: SBL, 2017), 265–311.
59 R. T. Fortna, The Gospel of Signs: A Reconstruction of the Narrative Source Underlying the
Fourth Gospel, SNTSMS 11 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1970). This was Fortna’s
doctoral dissertation, supervised by Martyn.
60 See U. C. von Wahlde, “The Pool of Siloam: The Importance of the New Discoveries for
was used for cleansing before people entered the temple area. Therefore, when
Jesus commands the man to wash in the Pool of Siloam and present himself
to the religious authorities, this incident coheres with critical realism. Despite
the meaning of the translated word being “sent” (9:7), this does not imply the
displacement of history by theology. It simply adds a feature of meaning to an
otherwise mundane socio-religious practice, connecting a Hellenistic audience
with the Jewish language of the Jerusalem event.61 As the blind were considered
unclean in Palestine during the ministry of Jesus, as were the lepers, Jesus is
presented as caring for the man’s restoration to societal inclusion – a detail that
would not have been relevant in diaspora Judaism – as a reflection of Johannine
primitive memory.62 Thus, by means of corroborative impression and critical
realism, the first level of history in John 9 is bolstered so as to support its reading
as a biographical narrative, not simply a later theological tool.
A further caution regarding a two-level reading of John’s narrative is to
remember that the inference of meaning on an earlier stage of the tradition’s
development is not devoid of significance on later stages, as well. Thus, even if
Bernier’s seeing ἀποσυνάγωγος as a reference to an earlier, Judean crisis, this
does not mean that it would not be relevant also at later stages in the tradition’s
development. Indeed, a more dialectical and inclusive approach to the surplus
of meaning (as Ricoeur would say) in John’s story of Jesus appreciates later
inferences of meaning as well as earlier ones. Thus, Martyn’s good work on the
rhetorical thrust of the ἀποσυνάγωγος in John 9:22; 12:42; and 16:2 still stands
as a clue to socio-religious tensions in the later Johannine situation – in my view
corroborated by other Johannine texts – but earlier tensions are likely as well as
later ones. Thus, within John’s highly dialectical situation, a number other issues
and audiences were also engaged rhetorically in John’s story of Jesus, and some
of these issues present themselves within the larger scenario of John 9, which
extends to 10:21.
H. Revelation and Rhetoric:

Two Dialogical Modes in John 9:1–10:21
While analyzing John 9 is valuable, it actually flows into John 10, as there is
no break between the words of Jesus in these two chapters. There are changes
of scene at the beginning of John 9 and at 10:22, however, so the unit to be
analyzed as a whole scenario is John 9:1–10:21. In the light of the above discus-
Our Understanding of Ritual Immersion in Late Second Temple Judaism and the Gospel of
John,” in Anderston, Just, and Thatcher, Aspects of Historicity, 155–74.
61 Von Wahlde, “Pool of Siloam”; cf. also idem, “The Puzzling Pool of Bethesda,” BAR 37/5
(2011): 40–65.
62 Von Wahlde, “Pool of Siloam.”
sion, note three levels of situation-dialogue operative within 9:1–10:21. These

involve: (a) intratraditional dialogues within the Johannine understanding of
illness and its origins, (b) socio-religious tensions in Jerusalem between the
Galilean prophet and religious leaders in Jerusalem, and (c) continuing tensions
between Jesus adherents and local synagogue leaders in a diaspora setting. When
considering the dialogical modes of rhetoric and revelation in this passage, these
engagements become palpable.
Within the larger unit of John 9:1–10:21, we also see three smaller sections
demarcated by the two dialogical modes of rhetoric and revelation. Rather than
seeing seven sections in John 9, as Martyn does, John 9 exhibits three main
sections with the third continuing into John 10.63 In the first section (9:1–12),
the disciples take the lead, asking a question (and thus betraying their miscom-
prehension) regarding the relation between sin and illness – a notion Jesus
corrects. In the second section, the initiative is taken up by the Pharisees and the
Judean leaders, who question the formerly blind man about Jesus – betraying
their miscomprehension, to be set straight by the testimony of the formerly blind
man (9:13–34). The third section moves from a rhetorical mode of dialogical
operation to a revelational one, as Jesus takes the initiative – first, engaging dis-
cussants in dialogue – and then expanding into discourses, where his expansions
upon his mission and work are set forth as invitations to believe in the divine
initiative (9:35–10:21). Thus, in these three dialogical engagements, at least
three issues in the evolving Johannine situation are addressed, not just one.
1. Dialogical Engagement I: Illness, Sin, and Signs

While the larger context of John 7–10 features a number of dialogical engage-
ments between Jesus and the Jerusalem authorities, ch. 9 breaks into narrative
in ways parallel to the healing of the lame man in John 5. Upon seeing the blind
man in the temple area, the disciples take the initiative, hearkening back to Jesus’s
warning to the formerly lame man in 5:17 not to sin, lest something worse befall
him. This issue is picked up again by the disciples’ question in 9:1–2, where, they
ask (v. 2, NRSV): “Rabbi, who sinned, this man or his parents, that he was born
blind?” In answering this question, Jesus responds (vv. 3–5): “Neither this man
nor his parents sinned; he was born blind so that God’s works might be revealed
in him. We must work the works of him who sent me while it is day; night is
coming when no one can work. As long as I am in the world, I am the light of
the world.” Jesus then spat on the ground and rubbed mud on the man’s eyes,
instructing him to wash in the Pool of Siloam. He came back seeing, causing
neighbors to question his identity. If it were the same man, how could his eyes be
opened (vv. 8–10)? The formerly blind man has no explanation; all he can do is
63 Martyn, History and Theology in the Fourth Gospel, 35–45.

report what Jesus had instructed, letting the result speak for itself (v. 11). Thus, in
answering the flawed understandings of the discussants taking the initiative, the
healing-redeeming work of Jesus speaks for itself, challenging understandings of
how things work conventionally, including explanations of why ill might befall
humanity.
Here the issues being addressed are primarily intratraditional, but they may
also reflect some intertraditional engagement. The memory of Jesus’s warning
to the formerly lame man not to sin in John 5 raises a question of theodicy
similar to one addressed in slightly differently in the Synoptics: is illness a result
of human sin? Whereas the Markan Jesus forgives the paralytic’s sins before
healing him (Mark 2:9), the Johannine Jesus clarifies that sin is not the reason
for the blind man’s illness. Rather, human illness presents an opportunity for
God’s works to be revealed, so such a motif might also reflect engagement with
Markan traditions or simply conventional understandings of the day. And, in the
following dialogues, it is precisely God’s revelatory work that is missed by the
religious leaders, who ironically claim to see.
Therefore, the primary target being engaged here in the Johannine audience
is those influenced by the Johannine tradition itself, including wisdom-tradition
assumptions that illness is a result of human failures or sins. Not the case,
declares the Johannine Jesus. Illness is not a punishment as a factor of blame;
rather, it provides an opportunity for God to be glorified and for the works of
God to be performed. These reflections expand upon memories of the ministry
of Jesus, unpacking their significance also for later relevance within the Johan-
nine situation.
2. Dialogical Engagement II: Divine Authorization and the Signs of Jesus
Throughout the largest section of John 9, the religious leaders of Jerusalem and
the Pharisees now take the lead in asking how the blind man received his sight
(v. 15). They continue their press, declaring that one breaking the Sabbath – and
thus a sinner – could not perform miraculous signs. Thus, their miscompre-
hending initiative is expressed as some of the Pharisees declare (v. 16, NRSV):
“This man is not from God, for he does not observe the sabbath.” Nonetheless,
others protest, saying, “How can a man who is a sinner perform such signs?”
reflecting divisions among the Jerusalem leaders. Therefore, they turn to the
blind man and confront him a second time (v. 17): “What do you say about him?
It was your eyes he opened.” Despite the blind man’s naming Jesus as a prophet,
the Judean leaders then question the parents of the blind man, who point back
to his own testimony (vv. 18–24). At this, they subject the seeing blind man to
a second round of questioning, claiming (v. 24): “Give glory to God! We know
that this man is a sinner.” To this the formerly blind man replies (v. 25): “I do
not know whether he is a sinner. One thing I do know, that though I was blind,
now I see.” At their further goading as to how his eyes had been opened, the
man turns to the religious leaders, asking if they want to become his disciples. To
this, they retort (vv. 26–29): “You are his disciple, but we are disciples of Moses.
We know that God has spoken to Moses, but as for this man, we do not know
where he comes from.” This leads then to the climactic testimony of the seeing
blind man, who attests to the works of Jesus confirming his divine agency as the
Eschatological Prophet (vv. 30–33):
Here is an astonishing thing! You do not know where he comes from, and yet he opened
my eyes. We know that God does not listen to sinners, but he does listen to one who
worships him and obeys his will. Never since the world began has it been heard that
anyone opened the eyes of a person born blind. If this man were not from God, he could
do nothing. (NRSV)
The Judean leaders reject his witness, assuming also his sinfulness in addition
to that of Jesus’s being a sinner because of his performing a healing on the Sab-
bath (v. 34). They therefore drive him out, objecting to a Sabbath healing in the
name of Mosaic authority – or at least their understanding of it. On the issues
addressed in this section, they would have played well within Palestine and also
in a diaspora setting, as Sabbath observance and Mosaic faithfulness would have
borne weight in both settings. What is significant here is that the seeing blind
man now becomes the lead witness to Jesus’s being the Eschatological Prophet,
which reflects first the memory of the ministry of Jesus in Judea, developed for
later audiences as part of the narrative’s apologetic thrust articulated in John
20:30–31.64 That the religious leaders got it wrong is signified by their rejecting
his testimony and driving him out.
3. Dialogical Engagement III: The Work of the Revealer

and Uneven Receptions
At this point, Jesus takes the initiative, presenting a scenario of revelation. The
formerly blind man then comes to believe in Jesus as the Son of Man, and Jesus
declares: “I came into this world for judgment so that those who do not see may
see, and those who do see may become blind” (9:35–39). Within the Judean
ministry of the Galilean prophet, some believe in Jesus because of his signs and
the witness of the formerly blind man, but others do not. At odds is their failure to
embrace the sign or to receive the healed man’s witness, ironically exposing their
blindness and closedness to God’s healing-revealing work. This set of dialogical
64 The words and works of Jesus in the Fourth Gospel show that he fulfills the typologies
of Moses and Elijah as Israel’s Eschatological Prophet, and this thrust comes to a narrative
climax with the testimony of the seeing blind man in John 9. See P. N. Anderson, “Jesus, the
Eschatological Prophet in the Fourth Gospel: A Case Study in John’s Dialectical Tensions,”
in Reading the Gospel of John’s Christology as Jewish Messianism: Royal, Prophetic, and Divine
Messiahs, ed. B. E. Reynolds and G. Boccaccini, AJEC 106 (Leiden: Brill, 2018), 271–99.
engagements would have been relevant during and following the ministry of
Jesus in a Palestine setting, as well as in later and more distant settings.
A third set of dialogues emerges in this section, set dramatically as a dia-
logue between Jesus and the Pharisees, leading into longer discourse sections
by Jesus. Here Jesus again takes the initiative, but the Pharisees fail to receive his
testimony, having also rejected that of the seeing blind man. Within this reve-
lational mode of narrative progression, Jesus declares (v. 39, NRSV): “I came into
this world for judgment so that those who do not see may see, and those who do
see may become blind.” In response to this claim, some of the Pharisees declare
(v. 40): “Surely we are not blind, are we?” To which Jesus responds (v. 41): “If
you were blind, you would not have sin. But now that you say, ‘We see,’ your
sin remains.” With Martyn and others, any claiming to “see” while rejecting the
“Light of the world” (8:12; 9:5; 12:46) in the developing Johannine tradition
would be addressed by this utterance, even pointedly addressing Jewish family
and friends within a diaspora setting wherein Pharisaic adherence to the ways
of Moses would have challenged any number of issues among Jesus adherents
seeking association among local Jewish communities.
These issues would have ranged from consternation over the welcoming of
Gentile believers in Jesus into synagogue fellowship if they had not become
officially Jewish, which would have included circumcision and outward markers
of being Jewish, to insistence upon adherence to Jewish faith and practice, which
would have included monotheism versus ditheism and associative concerns re-
garding inferred idolatry. In addressing these sorts of issues, the Johannine Jesus
offers two revelatory discourses, inviting a response of faith among emerging au-
diences. The first addresses revelatory access to the sheepfold, which challenges
cultic and dogmatic criteria (10:1–5); the second addresses the character of
authentic shepherding (10:7–18).
Very truly, I tell you, anyone who does not enter the sheepfold by the gate but climbs in
by another way is a thief and a bandit. The one who enters by the gate is the shepherd of
the sheep. The gatekeeper opens the gate for him, and the sheep hear his voice. He calls
his own sheep by name and leads them out. When he has brought out all his own, he goes
ahead of them, and the sheep follow him because they know his voice. They will not follow
a stranger, but they will run from him because they do not know the voice of strangers.
(10:1–5, NRSV)
In this first statement, Jesus contrasts entering the sheepfold through the gate
as opposed to climbing up into the fold by other means. The shepherd enters
through the gate, and he leads the sheep in and out because they know his voice,
but not that of strangers. On the question of the flock and the sheepfold, possible
meanings range from the sheepfold of the house of Israel – what it means to be
authentically Jewish, to the flock of Jesus adherents – those who believe in him
and seek to follow him as shepherd. And, some evolution of meaning is also a
possibility.
On one hand, climbing into the fold of God’s redeemed family by means of
law-oriented Sabbath adherence – over and against love-oriented celebrations
of healings of the lame and the blind – is challenged just as directly by the
Johannine Jesus as by the Synoptic Jesus. He performs healings on the Sabbath
with intentionality as means of provoking cognitive dissonance, pointing to the
loving heart of the Mosaic Law versus its legalistic hedges.65 Again, corroborative
impression between John and the Synoptics supports such a pointed thrust ref-
erencing the ministry of Jesus of Nazareth. The Pharisees fail to comprehend his
indirect speech, however, so Jesus continues in a more pointed way (10:7–18):
Very truly, I tell you, I am the gate for the sheep. All who came before me are thieves and
bandits; but the sheep did not listen to them. I am the gate. Whoever enters by me will be
saved, and will come in and go out and find pasture. The thief comes only to steal and kill
and destroy. I came that they may have life, and have it abundantly.
I am the good shepherd. The good shepherd lays down his life for the sheep. The hired
hand, who is not the shepherd and does not own the sheep, sees the wolf coming and
leaves the sheep and runs away – and the wolf snatches them and scatters them. The hired
hand runs away because a hired hand does not care for the sheep. I am the good shepherd.
I know my own and my own know me, just as the Father knows me and I know the Father.
And I lay down my life for the sheep. I have other sheep that do not belong to this fold.
I must bring them also, and they will listen to my voice. So there will be one flock, one
shepherd. For this reason the Father loves me, because I lay down my life in order to take
it up again. No one takes it from me, but I lay it down of my own accord. I have power to
lay it down, and I have power to take it up again. I have received this command from my
Father. (NRSV)
In this revelatory discourse, two metaphors are used in ways that are strikingly
odd.66 In vv. 7–10 Jesus claims to be the gate to the sheepfold, contrasting his
leadership to thieves, who simply rob and steal. On one hand, this could be a
reference to the political-economic-religious hold on Jewish society leveraged
by the Judean elite – including priests and Pharisees – whose measures designed
maintain adherence to the Mosaic Law created unintended hardships upon the
populace. Thus, their interests in maintaining Sabbath regulations are not root-
ed in divine love and concern for the individual in need, but in human approval
and societal esteem (5:42; 8:42; 11:36; 12:43).67
Alternatively, this reference to bandits and thieves could also be a reference to
the bandits, political messiahs, and Galilean zealots – the very insurrectionists
65 P. N. Anderson, “Jesus and Transformation,” in Psychology and the Bible: A New Way to
Read the Scriptures, vol. 4: From Christ to Jesus, ed. J. H. Ellens and W. G. Rollins (Westport, CT:
Praeger, 2004), 305–28.
66 See the essays in J. Beutler and R. T. Fortna, eds., The Shepherd Discourse of John 10 and
its Context: Studies by Members of the Johannine Writings Seminar, SNTSMS 67 (Cambridge:
67 Thus, the Johannine evangelist would not have been the first Jewish leader to criticize the
Jerusalem elite for their lapses in leadership; see the Qumranic critique of the Sadducees noted
by Instone-Brewer, “Eighteen Benedictions.”
that Bernier infers were the target of the earlier Jerusalem-based politically
oriented birkat. Thus, Jesus might have been here understood as contrasting
his mission to the likes of Judas the Galilean and Judas the son of Hezekiah,
whose attempts to liberate Israel from the Romans brought on severe punitive
onslaughts.68 If such an association were a feature of the earlier Johannine
tradition’s thrust, Jesus could be understood as distancing himself from those
the Jerusalem birkat might also have been targeting. Either way, a pre-70 CE
thrust of 10:7–10 distinguishes the love-oriented and truth-revealing mission of
Jesus from centralized religion and from violent insurrectionism. Thus, rather
than seeing here an interfaith challenge of one religion by another, the interest is
furthering grace and truth as an authentic Jewish ideal (Wis 3:9; John 1:14–17).
The second paragraph moves the subject to the work of the Good Shepherd,
who gives his life sacrificially for the life-producing benefit of the flock in con-
trast to the hireling, who flees at the sight of danger. The authentic shepherd
also knows his own, and they know him. They recognize his voice, and they are
quick to follow his leadings. While the contrast could relate to earlier self-serving
Jewish leaders in Judea, it would also apply to the Johannine post-70 CE situation,
where Johannine believers would have experienced adversity coming from any
number of directions. This could have referenced believers’ responses to dis-
ciplinary measures taken by local synagogue leaders, but the more likely thrust
involved the costly implications of having been distanced from local synagogues
in a diaspora setting, where Jesus adherents were now expected to offer public
emperor laud, if required by the occasion, on pain of punishment or even death.69
This was the price Ignatius was willing to pay, and which he admonished
leaders among the churches of Asia Minor to embrace in his letters. In contrast
to believers who denied Christ, confessed Caesar as lord, and offered incense to
the emperor, those following the way of Jesus should be willing to lay their lives
down for the sake of the flock. The example of Jesus is thus remembered in later
generations as a source of inspiration when Jesus adherents were facing new sets
of challenges. The Gentile mission of the Jesus movement is also here foretold, as
Jesus promises to gather sheep not of the present fold, seeking to bring them into
community as one flock under the same shepherd (10:16). Therefore, the final
paragraph in the discourse of Jesus in Jerusalem, following the healing of the
blind man and the exposure of the blindness of Jewish leaders, sounds the hope
of an effective mission to the Gentiles.70 Given the backdrop of the Johannine
68 Josephus, A. J. 17.10.6–10; B. J. 2.4–5. See Anderson, From Crisis to Christ, 52–55 (“Mes-
sianic Pretenders According to Josephus”).
69 As in the case of Ignatius of Antioch, Roman authorities had a practice of picking first on
Christian leaders – getting them to offer emperor laud as a means of influencing other believers
within their communities. See Anderson, “Sitz im Leben of the Johannine Bread of Life Dis-
course”; Cassidy, John’s Gospel in New Perspective.
70 Contra J. L. Martyn, “A Gentile Mission That Replaced an Earlier Jewish Mission?”
in Exploring the Gospel of John: In Honor of D. Moody Smith, ed. R. A. Culpepper and C. C.
Epistles, that mission was already in effect by the time the Gospel was finalized.
Thus, the memory of Jesus’s earlier mission and message coheres now with the
needs of the later Johannine situation, and one can appreciate the narrator’s
interest in recording it as he did.
The response of the crowd to Jesus’s discourses here is once again mixed.
Some declare Jesus to be demon-possessed and out of his mind, while others
question whether a demon could open the eyes of the blind (10:19–21). As a
result, by means of both revelation and rhetoric, the two dialogical modes of
the Johannine narrative convey in John 9:1–10:21 the agency of the Revealer
and his mixed reception among human discussants. While bad things some-
times happen to persons because of human sin or error, this is not always the
case; rather, a trial bears within itself the potential for God to be glorified. And,
as some religious leaders are scandalized by Jesus’s healing the blind man on
the Sabbath, they are ironically exposed as blind because they claim, “We see.”
Finally, the saving-revealing work availed by Jesus poses a redemptive alternative
to religious and political means of liberation, confirming the earlier attestation of
Jesus that the truth alone is liberating (8:32). While these themes would all have
been relevant during the actual ministry of Jesus, they also would have resonated
with later audiences in the evolving Johannine situation, drawing hearers and
readers into imaginary dialogues with Jesus – correcting human foibles and
flawed understandings – and guiding evolving audiences along the ways of truth
and life.71
I. Conclusion
In the light of Richard Burridge’s work on the genre of the Gospel of John as
cohering with Greek biographical narratives, it certainly merits being read
alongside the Gospel of Mark and the other Synoptic Gospels as a parallel and
alternative account of the ministry of Jesus. It thus should be read as a dialog-
ical engagement of Mark, at least, offering an augmentation of and a modest
corrective to some of Mark’s work. As an autonomous tradition, though, with
its own sets of original perceptions and understandings, developing over as
many as seven decades, John’s Gospel presents Jesus and his ministry in a highly
Black (Louisville, KY: Westminster John Knox Press, 1996), 124–44, this is not an either-or
dichotomy. Most likely, audiences addressed apologetically in the later phases of the Johannine
situation included both Jews and Gentiles instead of one at the total expense of the other.
71 Thus, with Bakhtin, “There is neither a first word nor a last word. The contexts of dia-
logue are without limit. They extend into the deepest past and the most distant future. Even
meanings born in dialogues of the remotest past will never be finally grasped once and for
all, for they will always be renewed in later dialogue …. For nothing is absolutely dead: every
meaning will someday have its homecoming festival.” K. Clark and M. Holquist, eds., Mikhail
Bakhtin (Cambridge, MA: Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 1984), 350.
dramatized form, operating back and forth from signs to dialogues to discourses,
and back again. In that sense, two particular dialogical modes are crafted so as
to present a compelling presentation of the truth that Jesus reveals – featuring
the divine initiative, which invariably scandalizes worldly religious schemes and
notional scaffoldings – that which is of human origin and initiative.
While John’s narrative was not intended for a single community alone, it did
arise out of the evangelist’s and his community’s situated experiences. Unlike the
other Gospels, however, the Johannine situation is corroborated externally by
the Johannine Epistles, and at least seven crises, or dialogical engagements with
contextual audiences and groups, are discernible within the Johannine narrative.
On this matter, Martyn’s analysis comes up short, as he labored too long and
hard for a singular dialogical engagement – the diaspora Jewish one – when a
more complex and variegated contextual history (including some of the issues
laid out by Brown, Borgen, Käsemann, Barrett, Cassidy, and others) is more
critically plausible. That being the case, when John 9:1–10:21 is considered in
polyvalent perspective, meanings that would have been relevant to earlier and
later audiences abound. Thus, not only does one infer in this passage an emerging
set of tensions with neighboring Jewish communities in a post-70 CE diaspora
setting, but one can also discern earlier and later meanings within the Johannine
tradition, as well as other issues being addressed, including the Gentile mission
and hardships of Jesus adherents living under the Roman Empire in the Domi-
tian era and beyond.
Distinctive among the ancient dialogues, the Johannine dialogues signal with
impressive consistency the miscomprehension of those who take the initiative
in coming to Jesus with a question or a bold statement. Invariably, religious and
political notionalities rooted in creaturely origins – flesh-and-blood judgment
or a man’s will (1:13) – are exposed as miscomprehending by the Johannine
Jesus (3:18–21). Conversely, when Jesus or God’s agents take the initiative, this
creates the crisis of continuing revelation: whether discussants will respond to
the divine initiative, or whether they will reject it, holding to something lesser. In
John 9:1–10:21 the Johannine Jesus thus corrects conventional understandings
of theodicy, challenges cultic and scripture-based understandings of religious
propriety, and distinguishes his sacrificial example of pastoral leadership from
those who care for themselves over and above the flock. Thus, those who claim,
“We see” are exposed as being blind, whereas those who receive their sight are
indeed commissioned as witnesses, because they have heard the voice of the
Shepherd and have heeded its sway. Such is the thrust of God’s revelatory work,
and also its scandal.
Second-Century Gospels as
“Re-Enactments” of Earlier Writings
Examples from the Gospel of Peter
Tobias Nicklas
The past thirty years have seen a revival of interest in non-canonical Gospel
material.1 In many cases, this has been accompanied by the question whether
a certain non-canonical writing could perhaps be earlier or historically more
reliable than its canonical counterparts. More than one generation ago John
Dominic Crossan even went so far as to speak about “four other Gospels” and
to trace significant portions of the canonical material to rather late strands in the
development of emerging Christian literature.2 Others have been more reluctant
and/or highly critical of this and comparable approaches.3 At the moment, some
representatives of current European scholarship are even moving in the opposite
direction, and are focusing on concrete manuscripts as witnesses of a text’s use
in late antiquity.4 This “new philology” approach is highly fascinating – and will
bring many new insights regarding the use, transmission, and function of texts
1 As R. A. Burridge’s magisterial work (What Are the Gospels? A Comparison with Graeco-
Roman Biography, SNTSMS 70 [Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1992]; 2nd ed.
[Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 2004]; 3rd ed. [Waco, TX: Baylor University Press, 2018])
focuses on the four canonical Gospels. Here I extend the interest on non-canonical writings.
Different from Burridge I am, however, not mainly interested in genre, but in the understanding
of narrative structures.
2 See J. D. Crossan, Four Other Gospels: Shadows on the Contours of Canon (Minneapolis:
Winston, 1985); and idem, The Historical Jesus: The Life of a Mediterranean Jewish Peasant
(San Francisco: HarperSanFrancisco, 1991), 427–34 (“Chronological Stratification of Jesus
Tradition”).
3 See, for instance, my contribution, “Traditions about Jesus in Apocryphal Gospels (with
the Exception of the Gospel of Thomas),” in Handbook for the Study of the Historical Jesus, ed.
T. Holmén and S. E. Porter, 4 vols. (Leiden: Brill, 2011), 3:2081–118 (including an intensive
discussion of secondary literature).
4 Among the most important representatives of this approach is H. Lundhaug, “The Nag
Hammadi Codices in the Complex World of 4th- and 5th-Cent. Egypt,” in Beyond Conflicts:
Cultural and Religious Cohabitations in Alexandria and Egypt between the 1st and 6th Centu-
ry CE, ed. L. Arcari, STAC 103 (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2017), 339–58 (who, for example,
wants to understand the Gospel of Philip as a late antique writing). While I regard the question
of what the Gospel of Peter meant for the producer(s) and owner(s) of the Akhmim-codex as
highly interesting, I do not go so far to regard the text as a sixth century product. For the more
472 Tobias Nicklas
long after their production. Uncertainty regarding the origins of large parts of
what we may call (somewhat artificially) “extracanonical Gospel”5 literature
persists, however – and it remains deeply bound to the question of these texts’
relations to other writings, especially to those which came to be canonical. Of
course, there is also no clear overall answer to this question. I have thus argued
elsewhere that the development of most second-century narrative Gospel (or
Gospel-like) material can be described with the help of three major paradigms.6
While NT scholarship usually (1) describes processes of redaction of earlier texts
and (2) is interested in the creation of new material (for example to fill gaps in the
story of Jesus or to fulfill functions which the older, traditional material can no
longer perform), I have recently proposed that some cases are better understood
(3) as “re-enactments” (Neuinszenierungen)7 of older stories. Although no extant
text is likely to offer a “pure” representation of any one of these models, I think
they can help us to understand the emergence of a large part of Gospel (and
Gospel-like) narrative material from the second and later centuries.8 I regard, for
example, Tatian’s Gospel (usually called Diatessaron)9 and probably Marcion’s
Gospel as representatives of the first approach,10 while portions of the Infancy
Gospel of Thomas (Paidika) create new material (although it also discloses
awareness of stories which made it into the NT).11 And, problems connected to
texts like the Unknown Gospel on Papyrus Egerton 2, the Epistula Apostolorum,
detailed argument, see T. Nicklas, “The Gospel of Peter between the Synoptics and Late Antique
Apostolic Memoirs,” in Esoteric and Apocryphal Sources in Christian and Jewish Traditions, ed.
I. Dorfmann-Lazarev (Leiden: Brill, [forthcoming]).
5 Even the term “Gospel” is highly problematic, as there is currently no universally accepted
definition. I use it in a very open manner for a broad variety of Jesus materials (which can even
include retellings of Jesus stories in texts written by known ancient Christian authors, e. g.,
Tertullian among others).
6 For this overall thesis, see T. Nicklas, “Zwischen Redaktion und ‘Neuinszenierung’: Vom
Umgang erzählender Evangelien des zweiten Jahrhunderts mit ihren Vorlagen,” in Gospels and
Gospel Traditions in the Second Century: Experiments in Reception, ed. idem, J. Schröter, and
J. Verheyden, BZNW 235 (Berlin: De Gruyter, 2019), 311–30.
7 I used this term for the first time to explain the evidence of the fragmentary P. Oxy. 76.5072
in “Eine neue alte Erzählung im Rahmen antiker Jesustraditionen: Reste eines Exorzismus auf
P. Oxy. lxxvi 5072,” ASE 29 (2012): 13–27.
8 I think that one could also look in how far some extracanonical Apostle narrative material
can be explained with this model. But see also G. Bazzana, “Replaying Jesus’ Sayings in the
‘Agrapha’: Reflections on Neu-Inszenierung of Jesus’ Traditions in the Second Century between
2 Clement and Clement of Alexandria,” in Nicklas, Schröter, and Verheyden, Gospels and Gospel
Traditions, 27–43, who started to use it in his description of the development of logia material.
9 Regarding Tatian’s Gospel, see the important essay by F. Watson, “Towards a Redaction-
Critical Reading of the Diatessaron,” EC 7 (2016): 95–112.
10 I am well aware of the controversies surrounding Marcion’s Gospel and its relation to the
Gospel of Luke. See, for example, the discussion of the history of research by D. T. Roth, The
Text of Marcion’s Gospel, NTTSD 49 (Leiden: Brill, 2015), 7–45.
11 The discussion of the Infancy Gospel of Thomas (or Paidika) is especially difficult be-
cause of the different forms in which this writing is transmitted.
Second-Century Gospels as “Re-Enactments” of Earlier Writings 473
the Gospel of Peter, or even the Protevangelium of James and others can be
solved with the help of the third model.
Before defining more precisely what I mean with the term “re-enactment,”
it will perhaps be helpful to examine what the above-mentioned problems con-
cretely entail in the case of the Gospel of Peter. John Dominic Crossan outlines
three different solutions to the problem of the Gospel of Peter’s relation to the
canonical Gospels.12 (1) Helmut Koester (among others) regards the text as
independent, but cannot fully explain the many parallels between the Gospel
of Peter and the canonical texts.13 (2) At the same time, according to Crossan,
scholars like Raymond Brown who regard the Gospel of Peter as dependent of
one or more or the canonical Gospels are wrong as well. Too many parallels to
the canonical Gospels seem either to go back to earlier stages of transmission,
or to have been developed independently.14 (3) Crossan thus regards the Gospel
of Peter as both dependent and independent of the canonical Gospels.15 In his
reconstruction, the text contains an early source, the so-called Cross Gospel,
which he understands as the oldest available account of Jesus’s passion and
resurrection. This Cross Gospel, however, was subjected to redactional revision
after the emergence of those Gospels which came to be canonical.16 Nobody
today (as far as I know) accepts the existence of Crossan’s Cross Gospel, and I do
not recommend its revival. Crossan’s main observation should not be dismissed
too quickly, however. In some respects, the Gospel of Peter seems to be depend-
ent upon, in others independent of, the canonical Gospels. My own solution is
closer to Brown’s than to Koester’s, but it emphasizes some nuances differently.17
I understand the Gospel of Peter (or at least important parts of what we have of
it) as a text which originated not by way of redaction of literary sources, but as a
“re-enactment” of these writings.
But what do I mean with this term? It refers to the “re-enactment” of older
Gospel stories when an author probably knew about written Gospels or Jesus
12 The following passage describes Crossan’s main argument according to his contribution,
“The Gospel of Peter and the Canonical Gospels,” in Das Evangelium nach Petrus: Text, Kon-
texte, Intertexte, ed. T. J. Kraus and T. Nicklas, TUGAL 158 (Berlin: De Gruyter, 2007), 117–34.
13 See H. Koester, “Apocryphal and Canonical Gospels,” HTR 73 (1980): 105–30, esp. 126.
14 See R. E. Brown, “The Gospel of Peter and Canonical Gospel Priority,” NTS 33 (1987):
321–43; and idem, The Death of the Messiah: From Gethsemane to the Grave; A Commentary
on the Passion Narratives of the Four Gospels, 2 vols., ABRL (New York: Doubleday, 1994),
2:1334–35.
15 See Crossan, “Gospel of Peter and the Canonical Gospels,” 121–33.
16 See mainly J. D. Crossan, The Cross That Spoke: The Origins of the Passion Narrative (San
Francisco: Harper & Row, 1988).
17 In addition, I want to emphasize that we can never be certain whether and where the text
of the Akhmim Codex exactly represents the 2nd-c. Gospel of Peter. This textual observation
should warn us to be too quick with source critical and literary critical observations. See, for ex-
ample, the arguments in T. Nicklas, “Ein neutestamentliches Apokryphon? Zum umstrittenen
Kanonbezug des sog. Petrusevangeliums,” VC 56 (2002): 260–72.
474 Tobias Nicklas
stories, but when the new story does not reveal a clear redactional attitude
towards the older ones. On the one hand, the new story follows main lines and
includes decisive motifs from the older versions; on the other hand, it deals so
freely with them that we cannot determine the extent of the new author’s access
to already-existing written texts. In other words, s/he may have heard or even
read these stories at a certain time, or perhaps s/he only knew about their ex-
istence in written form. But they were not available to him/her as written Vorlage
when s/he wrote down the new story.18 This becomes possible, for example, as
soon as a story becomes part of the “collective” or even “cultural memories” of a
group.19 By speaking about a “re-enactment,” that is, Neuinszenierung, and not
just a re-narration of the story, I am emphasizing interactive and performative
aspects of the processes which lead to the emergence of the new story. The term
therefore captures what can happen when well-known stories are retold (even
“set on stage,” in a certain sense) as the story-teller virtually “embodies”20 a story
in anticipation of and in response to a concrete performative situation, id est, a
“live audience.” We discover situations like this even today: a teacher seeking
to motivate students and a parent lulling children to sleep will re-tell, even “re-
stage,” the same story in vastly different ways. Depending on the audience in
mind, a certain freedom in the treatment of some of the text’s figures is possible,
while at the same time given motifs have to be repeated as listeners/readers expect
them to appear (although they might receive a different treatment and function).
Ancient texts, of course, never offer the real re-enactment (of the past), but are
perhaps something like a “frozen” image of it, that is, a re-enactment preserved
in writing.21
18 For a German definition see Nicklas, “Zwischen Redaktion und ‘Neuinszenierung,’”
312–13: “Von seiner ‘Neuinszenierung’ spreche ich, wenn sich zwar wahrscheinlich machen
lässt, dass ein Autor bereits vorliegende schriftliche Evangelien bzw. Jesuserzählungen kennt,
dass seine Erzählung aber mit diesen so frei umgeht, dass aus ihr nicht klar hervorgeht,
inwiefern und wie er diese als schriftliche Vorlagen verarbeitet hat. Die ‘neue’ Erzählung folgt
zwar grundlegenden Linien der schriftlichen Vorlage und bietet entscheidende Motive der
alten Erzählung, geht aber so frei mit diesen um, dass sich manche Änderungen gegenüber
der Vorlage nur erklären, wenn diese bei der Niederlegung des neuen Textes nicht unmittelbar
herangezogen wurde.”
19 Regarding the term “cultural memory” see mainly J. Assmann, Das kulturelle Gedächtnis:
Schrift, Erinnerung und politische Identität in frühen Hochkulturen, 3rd ed. (Munich: Beck,
2000); see also the articles by S. Huebenthal and T. Hatina in the present volume.
20 The vividness with which Jesus-stories could be retold for different audiences (perhaps
even using different media to perform the story) is perhaps mirrored in Gal 3:1. For a detailed
discussion, see D. A. Kurek-Chomycz, “Performing the Passion, Embodying Proclamation: The
Story of Jesus’s Passion in the Pauline Letters?,” in Gospel Images of Jesus Christ in Church
Tradition and in Biblical Scholarship: Fifth International East-West Symposium of New Tes-
tament Scholars, Minsk, September 2–9, 2010, ed. C. Karakolis, K.‑W. Niebuhr, and S. Rogalsky,
WUNT 288 (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2012), 373–402, esp. 384–86.
21 I recently found out that this image has also been used in a somewhat different context
by S. Huebenthal, “‘Frozen Moments’ – Early Christianity through the Lens of Social Memory
Theory,” in Memory and Memories in Early Christianity: Proceedings of the International Con-
To make my argument even clearer: the Unknown Gospel (UG) on Papyrus

Egerton 2, for example, offers a story about the healing of a leper parallel to the
Synoptic accounts of Mark 1:40–45 par. Matt 8:2–4 and Luke 5:12–16.22 As a
whole, the UG’s story is shorter than any of the Synoptic accounts, while at the
same time some of its motifs (like the leper’s explanation of his situation) are
heavily extended. In addition, a close comparison between the UG’s version and
the Synoptic texts reveals that the Synoptic versions are much closer to each
other than the UG to any of the Synoptic texts. I think that a situation like this
can be better explained by a re-enactment model than with classical ideas of the
redaction of a written Vorlage (which is more or less on the redactor’s desk).23 In
the present essay, I will show that many features of the Gospel of Peter (related
to Crossan’s above observation) can be explained if we understand this text as a
“frozen” re-enactment of “the” story of Jesus’s passion and resurrection.24
A. Motifs Taken Over from Canonical Narratives,

but in New Function
If we want to describe the author of the Gospel of Peter mainly as a redactor

of already-written Gospel material, we would have to understand him25 as an
especially silly person and abysmal narrator who took over impressive and
memorable details, but used them with much less sophistication than his
Vorlage. Some of the most remarkable details can be observed if we compare
the Gospel of Peter with the Gospel of John:26 v. 14, for example tells that the
ference Held at the Universities of Geneva and Lausanne (June 2–3, 2016), ed. S. Butticaz and
E. Norelli, WUNT 398 (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2018), 17–44.
22 For a more detailed discussion of this passage with the help of this paradigm, see Nicklas,
“Zwischen Redaktion und ‘Neuinszenierung,’” 323–24; for an overview of the passage’s relation
to the canonical Gospels see idem, “The ‘Unknown Gospel’ on Papyrus Egerton 2,” in Gospel
Fragments, ed. T. J. Kraus, M. J. Kruger, and T. Nicklas, OECGT (Oxford: Oxford University
Press, 2009), 9–120, esp. 48–52.
23 As several passages of the UG follow John quite closely, I suspect that the author of the
UG knew John much better than any of the Synoptic Gospels and may have even had access to
it in written form.
24 This is an important observation by J. Verheyden: the author of the Gospel of Peter may
have thought about his story as simply “the” story of Jesus’s passion and resurrection (like we
may think of “the” story of Hänsel und Gretel if we retell it freely to our kids). See Verheyden,
“Some Reflections on Determining the Purpose of the ‘Gospel of Peter,’” in Kraus and Nicklas,
Das Evangelium nach Petrus, 281–99, esp. 298–99.
25 I will speak about “him” from now on, even if I cannot exclude that the text was composed
by a woman.
26 For an overall treatment of the Gospel of Peter’s relation to the Fourth Gospel see T. Nick-
las, “Rezeption und Weiterentwicklung johanneischer Motive im Petrusevangelium,” in Studien
zu Matthäus und Johannes / Études sur Matthieu et Jean: Festschrift für Jean Zumstein zu seinem
65. Geburtstag / Mélanges offerts à Jean Zumstein pour son 65e anniversaire, ed. A. Dettwiler and
476 Tobias Nicklas
Jewish crowd was “enraged at him and commanded that (his) legs should not be
broken, so that he might die in torment.” Given that one of the two malefactors
crucified together with “the Lord” vilified Jesus’s executioners in v. 13, it is not
absolutely clear who is meant with the word “he.” While it is possible that the
text speaks about a decision against the malefactor, it is, of course, much more
plausible that it refers to Jesus.27 But even then, the only function of the motif of
not “breaking Jesus’s legs” (σκελοκοπέω) is simply to portray Jesus’s execution-
ers – that is, “the Jews” – in the darkest colors possible. If we compare this with
the sophisticated scene in John 19:32–33, 36 which probably serves to describe
Jesus as the real Passover Lamb, this is a real loss.28 While in this case one could
still think about an author who in this dumb anti-Judaism was more concerned
in vilifying “the Jews” than coping with John’s narrative Christology, a second
example may be even more revealing. Gos. Pet. 23–24 describes how Joseph of
Arimathea (whom the Gospel of Peter simply calls Joseph) receives Jesus’s dead
body for the burial: “He, however, took the Lord, washed him and wrapped
him in linen, and brought him into his own tomb, called the Garden of Joseph
(καλούμενον κῆπον Ἰωσήφ)” (v. 24). Again, the only parallel is offered by the
Gospel of John which also speaks about a certain preparation of Jesus’s body for
burial (John 19:40) and his burial in a new grave in a garden close to Golgotha
(19:38–42). John not only supplies a motive for the burial in the garden (19:42),
he takes it over in his resurrection scene where Mary Magdalene misunder-
stands the risen Jesus as the “gardener” who had taken away her Lord (20:15).
These details even led later interpreters to speculate whether John’s garden
scene refers to the paradise garden in the Book of Genesis.29 Be this as it may,
the Gospel of Peter offers no motive for the words “called the Garden of Joseph,”
nor do these words have any function in the subsequent narrative.30 They con-
stitute a “blind motif.”31 They bring to mind a storyteller who simply wants to
U. Poplutz, ATANT 97 (Zürich: TVZ, 2009), 361–76; some of the material on Gos. Pet. 13–14
and 23–24 is also used in Nicklas, “Zwischen Redaktion und ‘Neuinszenierung,’” 321–23.
27 But see also the very balanced discussion of the scene offered by P. Foster, The Gospel of
Peter: Introduction, Critical Edition and Commentary, TENTS 4 (Leiden: Brill, 2010), 306.
28 Of course, there is some discussion regarding the scriptural quote in John 19:36. The
consensus, however, that this scene refers to the Passover Lamb is quite broad.
29 But see H.‑U. Weidemann, Der Tod Jesu im Johannesevangelium: Die erste Abschiedsrede
als Schlüssel für den Passions- und Osterbericht, BZNW 122 (Berlin: De Gruyter, 2004), 248
n. 17: “Die seit den Kirchenvätern belegte Verbindung des Gartens von Joh 18–19 (20) mit dem
Paradiesgarten aus Gen 2 f. steht sprachlich auf schmalem Fundament.” Interestingly, the closest
parallel is not in a text which we would usually define as a Gospel, but is given by Tertullian,
Prax. 16.6, who speaks about the “tomb of Joseph.” Other late antique writings revivify the
garden motif. The (perhaps) 6th-c. Coptic Book of the Resurrection of Christ (§ 8), for example,
speaks about a vegetable garden and its owner, a certain Philogenes, who plays an important
role in the narrative.
30 Even if we take into account that the Gospel of Peter in its present state is fragmentary, its
textual remains make it very improbable that Joseph’s Garden is mentioned a second time.
31 Regarding this term see A. Koschorke, Wahrheit und Erfindung: Grundzüge einer all-
show that he knows what his audience expects him to include in the story, but
who no longer knows how to make good sense of it. In other words, the Gospel
of Peter’s treatment of the garden motif either reveals a very dull redaction of
John’s Gospel, or a storyteller who mentions it because he thinks his audience
will be disappointed by its omission. Since he does not remember how exactly
John links Joseph, Jesus’s burial, and the garden (and does not have access to his
written Gospel), he creates his own narrative which (at least in its final version)
is less convincing than John’s.
Many more examples could be offered. An especially interesting one can be
found in Gos. Pet. 3 where Joseph (again, Joseph of Arimathea) is called “the
friend of Pilate and the Lord.” How is such a description possible? Does the
author of the Gospel of Peter have access to Jesus traditions unknown to the
authors of the canonical Gospels? Of course, this cannot be excluded; because of
the text’s current fragmentary state, we do not know whether or to what extent
the Gospel of Peter had offered one or more passages relating to this special
triangle of friendship. Perhaps another perspective on motifs from the canonical
Gospels can be helpful. On the one hand, the idea that Joseph stands in close re-
lation to Jesus could depend on texts like Matt 27:47 and John 19:31 which both
describe Joseph as a disciple of Jesus. John says he follows Jesus only in secret
because of his “fear of the Jews.” The additional idea that he can be called “friend
of Pilate” perhaps relies on an observation that he has no problem obtaining
access to Pilate in order to ask him for Jesus’s body (Matt 27:59; Mark 15:43;
Luke 23:52; John 19:38). But we may be able to go one step further. As far as
I know, the Gospel of Peter is the only known ancient Greek text which uses
the expression φίλος Πειλάτου; the remnants of these words on P. Oxy. 41.2949
were decisive for the identification of this witness with Gos. Pet. 3–5 (or at least
a closely related tradition).32 The only other friend of Pilate ever mentioned in
ancient literature is Herod. After the famous scene of Luke 23:6–12 according
to which Pilate sends Jesus to Herod because he is a Galilean, Luke concludes:
ἐγένοντο δὲ φίλοι ὁ τε Ἡρῴδης καὶ ὁ Πιλᾶτος ἐν αὐτῇ τῇ ἡμέρᾳ (Luke 23:12a).
Interestingly, Herod is also present in the Gospel of Peter’s description of the
gemeinen Erzähltheorie (Frankfurt am Main: S. Fischer, 2012), 54: “Die Erzählforschung

unterscheidet zwischen blinden (funktionslos gewordenen) und stumpfen Motiven (die nur
in einem bestimmten Funktionszusammenhang aufgerufen werden, von dem übrigen Er-
zählverlauf jedoch isoliert bleiben); sie geht davon aus, dass derartige Motive oft nur deshalb
aufbewahrt werden, weil sie Bestandteile eines formularischen Schemas sind – beispielsweise
einer mündlichen Märchenüberlieferung.”
32 Scholars have debated the questions of whether and to what extent P. Oxy. 41.2949 can be
understood as an early witness of the Gospel of Peter. See, for example, the very reluctant view
of Foster, Gospel of Peter, 58–68 (including discussion of further secondary literature), but also
the discussion of the fragment by T. J. Kraus and T. Nicklas, eds., Das Petrusevangelium und die
Petrusapokalypse: Die griechischen Fragmente mit deutscher und englischer Übersetzung, GCS
n. s. 11, Neutestamentliche Apokryphen 1 (Berlin: De Gruyter, 2004), 55–58.
478 Tobias Nicklas
trial, indeed as the person who sentences Jesus to death (v. 2). If we work with the
idea of a redactional process with literary writings at hand, the Gospel of Peter’s
development of such a mixture of motifs becomes very difficult to explain. But
if we envision instead an author who has aspects of Luke’s passion account fore-
most in mind, the whole task is much easier. Perhaps he remembers that Herod
played a certain role in Jesus’s passion, and that Herod with a group of persons
associated with him mocked Jesus (Herod and his soldiers in Luke 23:11 ||
“Jews” in Gos. Pet. 6–9). He may know that there were Jewish bystanders (high
priests and Pharisees in Luke 23:10 || Joseph in Gos. Pet. 3) and that someone in
this scene was friend of Pilate (Herod in Luke 23:12 || Joseph in Gos. Pet. 3). At
the same time he mixes this final motif with the idea that Joseph was also close
to Jesus (see above). Of course, such a process cannot be proven and will remain
a hypothesis. I regard a model like this, however, as much more probable than
the idea of a redactor consulting multiple Vorlagen as he was composing his own
text.
B. The Development of Characters
My second series of observations is connected with the development of certain

characters in the Gospel of Peter and their relation to what the canonical
Gospels say about them. One might mention the Gospel of Peter’s figure of
Herod, which seems to mix different Biblical Herod figures;33 or Pilate, a quite
ambivalent character;34 or the text’s image of the “Jews” which is perhaps more
nuanced than usually thought.35 I will concentrate here, instead, on a minor
character, the “centurion Petronius” (Gos. Pet. 31, Πετρώνιον τὸν κεντυριώνα).
This character is probably developed from the unnamed figure who, according
to the Synoptic Gospels (Mark 15:39 [κεντυρίων] || Matt 27:54 and Luke 23:47
[ἑκατοντάρχης]), stood under Jesus’s cross and confessed him as “Son of God”
(Mark 15:39 and Matt 27:54) or as a righteous man (Luke 23:47). In the Gospel
of Peter he seems not to be present during Jesus’s crucifixion which is accom-
33 For a comparable tendency see, for example, the Acts Pet. 8 (in the Vercelli version) or
the Latin Vis. Ezra 37–38.
34 The Gospel of Peter is certainly not one of the texts which tries to exonerate Pilate
and the Romans from their guilt connected to Jesus’s passion. For a detailed analysis of the
Gospel of Peter’s Pilate figure, see H. Omerzu, “Die Pilatusgestalt im Petrusevangelium: Eine
erzählanalytische Annäherung,” in Kraus and Nicklas, Das Evangelium nach Petrus, 327–48.
35 Regarding the recent discussion of the Gospel of Peter’s description of the “Jews” and
their leaders, see P. Augustin, Die Juden im Petrusevangelium: Narratologische Analyse und
theologiegeschichtliche Kontextualisierung, BZNW 214 (Berlin: De Gruyter, 2015); J. Marcus,
“The Gospel of Peter as a Jewish-Christian Document,” NTS 64 (2018): 473–94; and (most
recently) T. Nicklas, “Anti-Jewish Polemics? The Gospel of Peter Revisited,” in Les Polémiques
religieuses du Ier au IVe siècle de notre ère: Hommage à Bernard Pouderon, ed. G. Bady and
D. Cuny, ThH 128 (Paris: Beauchesne, 2019), 153–76.
plished by “the Jews” alone. Interestingly, his role is partly taken over by “the
whole people,” which after Jesus’s death begins to understand its guilt and con-
fesses:36 “If at his death these most mighty signs have come to pass, see how
righteous he is (ἴδετε ὅτι πόσον δίκαιός ἐστιν).” This wording comes quite close
to Luke 23:47, according to which the centurion says: “This was certainly a
righteous man” (ὄντως ὁ ἄνθρωπος οὗτος δίκαιος ἦν). This change coheres well
with the Gospel of Peter’s concept of Jesus’s passion, if the idea is correct that
the text is indeed concerned with the future of the Jewish people (which the text
distinguishes from its leaders).37 The Gospel of Peter does not, however, delete
the figure of the centurion. According to Gos. Pet. 29–30, the Jewish elders who
fear the people petition Pilate to give them soldiers to guard Jesus’s sepulcher for
three days (see the parallel in Matt 27:62–64). The text continues: “But Pilate
gave them Petronius the centurion with soldiers to guard the tomb” (v. 31 ||
Matt 27:65). Together with elders and scribes the soldiers go to Jesus’s sepulcher
where they “rolled a large stone … at the door of the sepulcher, … affixed seven
seals, pitched a tent there and kept watch” (Gos. Pet. 32–33 || Matt 27:66).
Until now, the scene recalls Matt 27:62–66. A closer look, however, reveals that
there are no significant verbal parallels indicating a literary relation. The texts
even differ in aspects where one would expect them to be close to each other.
The Gospel of Peter, for instance, does not mention a time where the Jewish
leaders meet Pilate. It omits the high priests and inserts scribes and elders and
mentions their fear. Jesus’s grave is called a μνῆμα (Gos. Pet. 30) instead of a
τάφος (Matt 27:64). All this sounds much more like a free re-enactment of the
scene than a text produced by literary redaction. As the story proceeds, it only
vaguely recalls Matthew. During the night the guards, along with the centurion
and the elders, become witnesses of Jesus’s resurrection (Gos. Pet. 38) – quite a
difference from Matt 28:4, the only canonical parallel, according to which the
guards “became like dead men” (ἐγενήθησαν ὡς νεκροί) and the Jewish leaders
were not present at all.38 While they discuss whether they should “announce
this to Pilate” (Gos. Pet. 43), another angel39 descends from heaven and enters
the sepulcher. The text goes on: “When those who were with the centurion saw
this, they hurried by night to Pilate, leaving the tomb which they were guard-
ing, and reported everything that they had seen. They were greatly distressed
and said: ‘In truth he was the Son of God’” (v. 45). The Markan and Matthean
36 The whole scene shows a certain resemblance to Luke 23:48.

37 This is the main thesis of Marcus, “Gospel of Peter.”
38 Regarding the relation of Matthew’s and the Gospel of Peter’s resurrection account, see
T. Nicklas, “Resurrection in the Gospels of Matthew and Peter: Some Developments,” in Life
Beyond Death in Matthew’s Gospel: Religious Metaphor or Bodily Reality?, ed. W. Weren, H. van
de Sandt, and J. Verheyden, BTS 13 (Leuven: Peeters, 2011), 27–42.
39 Actually the Gospel of Peter speaks about a “certain man” (v. 44: ἄνθρωπός τις) which
can either resemble the guard’s perspective or remind of Mark 16:5 which speaks about a
“young man” in the tomb.
480 Tobias Nicklas
centurion’s confession is thus preserved, but moved from the crucifixion scene
to the resurrection account. The Gospel of Peter’s rendition of the confession
call to mind both Mark’s and Matthew’s versions (see esp. the use of the word
ἀληθῶς at the beginning of the sentence), but on the whole it differs slightly
more from Mark than Matthew does:
Mark 15:39 ἀληθῶς οὗτος ὁ ἄνθρωπος υἱὸς θεοῦ ἦν.
Matt 27:54 ἀληθῶς θεοῦ υἱὸς ἦν οὗτος.
Gos. Pet. 45 ἀληθῶς υἱὸς ἦν θεοῦ.
A rather strange scene follows. Although Pilate declares himself “clean from the
blood of the Son of God” (v. 46; see Matt 27:24) the Jewish leaders convince him
“to command the centurion and the soldiers to say nothing of the things they
had seen” (v. 47). Even if the Jewish leaders are aware that this is “the greatest
sin before God” (v. 48), Pilate “commanded the centurion and the soldiers to say
nothing.” After this Petronius and the soldiers disappear from the scene. They
seem to turn into silent witnesses.
How can we deal with this interesting re-arrangement of scenes and the devel-
opment of the figure “Petronius”? First and foremost, the Gospel of Peter clearly
develops its own story which only loosely recalls Matthew (and sometimes the
other Synoptics). This connection is recognizable on the level of common motifs
and the main plot of the story, but not on the level of word-by-word comparison.
Second, the Gospel of Peter gives a name to the anonymous centurion found in
the Synoptic Gospels. I can detect no recognizable narrative reason to do this; the
name, again a “blind motif,” does not become relevant for the further story and
it does not have a higher symbolic meaning.40 It may have to do with the fact that
the Gospel of Peter claims to be an eyewitness account given by Peter himself, but
the text does not make much of this. We can observe comparable developments
in other apocryphal texts – such a tendency usually does not point to historical
memory, but normally indicates later development.41 Finally, the centurion loses
his Markan (and perhaps also Matthean) role as confessing witness to Jesus’s
crucifixion. In the Gospel of Mark he is probably even a key figure – a non-Jew
who offers the very first confession of Jesus, which is not relativized later in the
40 Of course, such a sentence is always problematic, since our text is only fragmentary. In-
terestingly, the Acts Pil. 16.7 also names the centurion, but here he is called “Longinus.” A series
of speculations about the background of the name “Petronius” is given by M. G. Mara (Évangile
de Pierre, SC 201 [Paris: Cerf, 1973], 169), but this does not lead to any convincing solution.
41 Regarding the phenomenon in the Gospel of Peter, see J. Frey, “‘Apokryphisierung’
im Petrusevangelium: Überlegungen zum Ort des Petrusevangeliums in der Entwicklung
der Evangelienüberlieferung,” in The Apocryphal Gospels within the Context of Early Chris-
tian Theology, ed. J. Schröter, BETL 260 (Leuven: Peeters, 2013), 157–93, esp. 192; and (with
many examples) B. M. Metzger, “Names for the Nameless in the New Testament,” in Kyriakon:
Festschrift Johannes Quasten, ed. P. Granfield and J. A. Jungmann, 2 vols. (Münster: Aschen-
dorff, 1970) 1:79–95.
text.42 In the Gospel of Peter, his and his soldiers’ confession follows the text’s
massive, virtually over-visualized resurrection scene;43 but at the same time this
confession leads to nothing because he is identified with the silenced leader of
the guard who watches over the tomb. Compared to Mark (and probably also
to Matthew), the centurion’s role is thus broadened and at the same time made
less significant, an observation which reminds of the phenomena we observed
around motifs like the “Garden of Joseph” or the “breaking of Jesus’s legs.” If all
these developments are signs of a literary redaction, it is very difficult to find
clear reasons why the author of the Gospel of Peter changed so many details. But
if we perceive him as an author who knows of the existence of the Matthean story
(plus the other Synoptic passion accounts), had probably heard (or even read) it
some time ago, did not have it at hand, but wanted to re-tell (or re-enact) it for
his audience, this set of observations can be explained. In a certain sense, then,
he is dependent (on the level of the main story line and many of its motifs) and
independent (on the level of verbal parallels) of the canonical Gospels.
C. A Scene in Synoptic Comparison
Let me come to a third level of argument: as far as I can see, the Gospel of Peter
contains several scenes which are close to what we find in the canonical ac-
counts. Comparable to the Unknown Gospel’s version of the healing of the leper,
the canonical accounts resemble each other much more closely than the Gospel
of Peter’s compared to any of them. A look into the Gospel of Peter’s version of
the empty tomb story (vv. 50–57) is revealing:44
50 ὄρθου δὲ τῆς κυριακῆς Μαριὰμ ἡ Μαγδαληνὴ μαθήτρια τοῦ κυρίου, φοβουμένη
διὰ τοὺς ̓Ιουδαίους, ἐπειδὴ ἐφλέγοντο ὑπὸ τῆς ὀργῆς, οὐκ ἐποίησεν ἐπὶ τῷ μνήματι
τοῦ κυρίου ἃ εἰώθεσαν ποιεῖν αἱ γυναῖκες ἐπὶ τοῖς ἀποθνήσκουσι καὶ τοῖς ἀγαπωμένοις
αὐταῖς, 51 λαβοῦσα μεθ ̓ ἑαυτῆς τὰς φίλας ἦλθε ἐπὶ τὸ μνημεῖον ὅπου ἦν τεθείς. 52 καὶ
ἐφοβοῦντο μὴ ἴδωσιν αὐτὰς οἱ ̓Ιουδαῖοι καὶ ἔλεγον, εἰ καὶ μὴ ἐν ἐκείνῃ τῇ ἡμέρᾳ ᾗ
ἐσταυρώθη ἐδυνήθημεν κλαῦσαι καὶ κόψασθαι, καὶ νῦν ἐπὶ τοῦ μνήματος αὐτοῦ
ποιήσωμεν ταῦτα. 53 τίς δὲ ἀποκυλίσει ἡμῖν καὶ τὸν λίθον τὸν τεθέντα ἐπὶ τῆς θύρας
τοῦ μνημείου, ἵνα εἰσελθοῦσαι παρακαθεσθῶμεν αὐτῷ καὶ ποιήσωμεν τὰ ὀφειλόμενα;
54 μέγας γὰρ ἦν ὁ λίθος. Καὶ φοβούμεθα μή τις ἡμᾶς ἴδῃ καὶ εἰ μὴ δυνάμεθα, κἂν ἐπὶ τῆς
θύρας βάλωμεν ἃ φερομεν εἰς μνημοσύνην αὐτοῦ, κλαύσομεν καὶ κοψόμεθα ἕως ἔλθωμεν
εἰς τὸν οἶκον ἡμῶν. 55 καὶ ἀπελθοῦσαι εὗρον τὸν τάφον ἠνεῳγμένον καὶ προσελθοῦσαι
42 For a good discussion of the Markan scene see, for example, J. Marcus, Mark: A New
Translation with Introduction and Commentary, 2 vols., AYB 27, 27A (New Haven, CT: Yale
University Press, 2000, 2009), 2:1067–68.
43 Frey (“Apokryphisierung,” 174) calls it an “objektivierte Darstellung der Auferstehung
Jesu.”
44 Quotation of the Greek text (and English translation) follows Kraus and Nicklas, Pe-
trusevangelium und Petrusapokalypse, 44, 46, 48 and 52–53.
482 Tobias Nicklas
παρέκυψαν ἐκεῖ καὶ ὁρῶσιν ἐκεῖ τινα νεανἱσκον καθεζόμενον μέσῳ τοῦ τάφου ὡραῖον
καὶ περιβεβλημένον στολὴν λαμπροτάτην, ὅστις ἔφη αὐταῖς. 56 τί ἤλθατε; τίνα ζητεῖτε;
μὴ τὸν σταυρωθέντα ἐκεῖνον, ἀνέστη καὶ ἀπῆλθεν. Εἰ δὲ μὴ πιστεύετε, παρακύψατε καὶ
ἴδετε τὸν τόπον ἔνθα ἔκειτο ὅτι οὐκ ἔστιν. ̓Ανεστη γὰρ καὶ ἀπῆλθεν ἐκεῖ ὅθεν ἀπεστάλη.
57 Τότε αἱ γυναῖκες φοβηθεῖσαι ἔφυγον.
50 At dawn of the Lord’s day Mary Magdalene, a woman disciple of the Lord, who, through
fear of the Jews who were burning with rage, had not done at the sepulcher of the Lord
what women are accustomed to do for their dead loved ones, 51 took her friends with her
and went to the sepulcher, where he had been laid. 52 And they feared that the Jews should
see them, and said: “Even though we could not weep and lament on the day when he was
crucified, yet let us now do these things at his sepulcher. 53 But who will roll away for us
this stone that was laid at the door of the sepulcher, so that we may go in and sit beside
him and do the things that are due?” 54 – For the stone was great. – “And we fear that any
one should see us. And if we cannot do so, let us lay down at the door the things which
we bring for a memorial of him, we will weep and lament, until we come back into our
home.” 55 And as they departed, they found the tomb opened, and as they went in, they
bent down there and saw a young man sitting in the middle of the tomb, beautiful and
clothed with a brightly shining robe, who said to them: 56 “Why have you come? Who do
you seek? Not that man who was crucified? He is risen and gone hence. But if you do not
believe, stoop down and see the place where he lay: He is not (there). For he is risen and is
gone to the place from which he was sent.” 57 And the women feared and fled.
Since a full synoptic comparison of the scene far exceeds the scope of this essay,45
I will be able to concentrate on only a few aspects of the text. The main partner
in dialogue will be the Gospel of Mark: While the Gospel of Peter’s resurrection
scene (vv. 32–42) seems to be mainly influenced by Matthean Easter stories, its
description of the women coming to the empty tomb (vv. 50–57) is closest to
Mark 16:1–8. This can already be seen by the abrupt closure of the story, which
comes very close to the short ending of Mark. But this is not the only observation.
As several interpreters have shown, many of the story’s guiding motifs closely re-
semble what we find in Mark 16.46 Together with other women, Mary Magdalene
visits the grave on Sunday morning (Gos. Pet. 50–51 || Mark 16:2). They want to
do for Jesus “what woman are accustomed to do for their dead loved ones” (Gos.
Pet. 50; cf. Mark 16:1). They consider how to deal with the difficulties with the
big stone in front of the grave (Gos. Pet. 53–54 and Mark 16:3–4),47 but find the
tomb open (Gos. Pet. 55 and Mark 16:4). The scene in the grave is even closer
45 For a detailed discussion of the passage see my forthcoming commentary on the Gospel
of Peter, Das Petrusevangelium aus Akhmim, KAL (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht,
[forthcoming]).
46 See, for example, Foster, Gospel of Peter, 466–68; T. P. Henderson, The Gospel of Peter and
Early Christian Apologetics: Rewriting the Story of Jesus’ Death, Burial and Resurrection, WUNT
2/301 (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2011), 197–200, and T. J. Kraus, “EvPetr 12,50–14,60: Leeres
Grab und was dann? Kanonische Traditionen, novelistic development und romanhafte Züge,”
EC 4 (2013): 335–61, esp. 351.
47 Only Mark and the Gospel of Peter mention the women’s question explicitly.
to Mark: they find a young man whose brightly shining clothes are described
(Gos. Pet. 55 and Mark 16:5). After their dialogue with the young man (Gos.
Pet. 56–57; Mark 16:5–6), the women flee (Gos. Pet. 57; Mark 16:8).48
In other words, Gos. Pet. 50–57 retells a chain of events which comes very
close to what we find in Mark 16:1–8, yet the number of concrete verbal parallels
is much less significant than it may initially seem. The very strange motif that
the women flee after their encounter with the angel makes it highly probable
that the Gospel of Peter does not simply re-tell some empty tomb story, but has
this strange feature of the Markan version somehow in the background.49 A few
observations, however, make it very unlikely that the author of the Gospel of
Peter had a copy of Mark at hand when he wrote down his story. First, the fact
that he uses the rather late term “Lord’s day” (κυριακή)50 to describe the time
when Mary and her friends start off (v. 50) is already a sign that the Gospel of
Peter must be later than Mark. A later date for the text is further confirmed by the
observation that the women do all this “through fear of the Jews” (φοβουμένη
διὰ τοὺς Ιουδαῖους; v. 50, but see also 52) – a clear resemblance to a typical Jo-
hannine motif (John 7:13; 19:38; 20:19). As is well-known, the different Gospels
give different names to the women who go to the tomb. It is thus quite difficult to
remember the concrete names mentioned in the different Gospels, but one thing
is clear: Mary Magdalene is certainly present. The combination of her (written
in the interesting form Μαριὰμ ἡ Μαγδαληνή, Gos. Pet. 50) and “[her?] friends”
(τὰς φίλας)51 makes the best sense if our author remembered that Mary and a
group of other women went to the grave, but did not have in mind their relations
to each other and their names. One could offer further comparable details, but
one observation is especially astonishing: if our author used Mark as a written
Vorlage, we cannot explain why he omitted Mark 16:7. In other words, why
should the author of a Gospel of Peter omit the first reference to Peter after Je-
sus’s resurrection? The only reason I can imagine is that the author of the Gospel
48 See also Kraus, “EvPetr 12,50–14,60,” 351: “Maria Magdalena kommt sehr früh am Tag
mit anderen Frauen zum Grab (12,50 mit Mk 16,2). Sie wollen den Verstorbenen pflegen (im-
plizit in 12,50; Mk 16,1). Der Stein stellt ein Problem dar, denn er ist sehr groß (nur 12,54 und
Mk 16,4), und nur in Mk und EvPetr stellen die Frauen selbst die Frage, wer denn den Stein weg-
rollen solle (12,53 und Mk 16,3). Das Grab ist aber offen (13,55 mit Mk 16,4). Der Jüngling in
leuchtender Kleidung (13,55 und Mk 16,5), die Ähnlichkeit zwischen Fragen (13,56) und Aus-
sagen (Mk 16,6), die Antwort des Jünglings, insbesondere die Augenzeugenschaft der Frauen …
und die Flucht der Frauen (13,57 und Mk 16,8) sind weitere auffällige Übereinstimmungen, die
teils wörtlich, aber meist motivischer und inhaltlicher Art sind, allen voran was die Abfolge der
Ereignisse angeht.”
49 Regarding the impact of the short ending of Mark for the reading of the whole Gospel,
see S. Alkier’s contribution in the present volume.
50 The only NT use of the term in the sense of “Lord’s day” is Rev 1:10 (but see also Did.
14.1 and Ignatius, Magn. 9.1).
51 It is not absolutely clear whether the text wants to describe them as Mary’s or Jesus’s
friends.
484 Tobias Nicklas
of Peter may have heard or read Mark 16:1–8, and he may have remembered
main aspects of the story, but Mark 16:7 cannot have been in his hand when he
wrote down his own text.52 Again, the Gospel of Peter is both dependent upon
and independent of Mark, but not in the way Crossan describes it.
Finally, a recent article by Thomas J. Kraus makes an important additional
point: Gos. Pet. 50–57 seems especially interested in the women’s thoughts and
their emotions.53 We read about their “fear of the Jews” (vv. 50 and 52; cf. v. 53)
and their love of Jesus (v. 50). In their dialogue (v. 52), they are concerned with
their hope to express their feelings by weeping and lamenting (see also v. 53),
and when they finally receive the angel’s message, they “feared and fled” (v. 57).
The text is thus especially concerned with the combination of “fear,” “love” and
“grief.” None of this adds anything important to the plot, and it could be told in a
much simpler way.54 But it introduces an element that can be important for a “re-
enactment” in the above sense: empathy! Much more than the Gospel of Mark,
the Gospel of Peter allows its readers to peer into its characters, the women at the
tomb. It is now possible to participate even closer in their experience. One can
call this an aspect of “novelistic development”55 or describe developments like
this as “apocryphization”56 – I regard both terms as possible (even if the second
one can cause misunderstandings), but these are only different perspectives on
the phenomenon I have described above.
D. Conclusion
My conclusion may be short: I think that some phenomena to be observed in

several second-century and later Gospels57 can be better explained if we under-
stand these texts as “re-enactments” of writings already existing in written form,
but not always and everywhere available. This description comes close to the
idea of a “secondary orality,” but emphasizes even more the dramatic aspect
52 See the comparable idea of Kraus, “EvPetr 12,50–14,60,” 351–52. We need, however, to
admit that the Gospel of Peter is only fragmentary; perhaps a missing passage after the closure
of the extant text made it necessary to exclude a parallel to Mark 16:7.
53 See Kraus, “EvPetr 12,50–14,60,” 353–54: “Die Kommentierungen und Nebenbemer-
kungen verdeutlichen …, dass ein Hauptinteresse der Erzählung des EvPetr hier explizit in der
Darstellung der Gedanken der Frauen und ihrer Gefühlslage liegt.”
54 See also Kraus, “EvPetr 12,50–14,60,” 353.
55 See Kraus, “EvPetr 12,50–14,60,” 355, referring to B. A. Johnson, “Empty Tomb Tradition
in the Gospel of Peter” (ThD diss., Harvard Univeristy, 1965).
56 See Frey, “Apokryphisierung”; and idem, “From Canonical to Apocryphal Texts: The
Quest for Processes of ‘Apocryphication’ in Early Jewish and Early Christian Literature,” in
Between Canonical and Apocryphal Texts: Processes of Reception, Rewriting and Interpretation
in Early Judaism and Early Christianity, ed. idem, C. Clivaz, and T. Nicklas, WUNT 425 (Tüb-
ingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2019), 1–44.
57 I am also quite sure that the term could help to understand development of apocalyptic
of this process and its relation to special situations. The results are – in some
sense – rather conservative. The fact that a text like the Gospel of Peter seems to
be partly dependent and partly independent of canonical Gospels, as Crossan
observed, does not lead to the reconstruction of older and independent sources.
Instead, the new story needs to relate to already existing and well-known ac-
counts (in order to remain “the” story in the eyes of the audience), but at the
same time it may be free in many of its details – mainly details which are not
decisive for the overall plot. In another sense, however, this is perhaps less con-
servative: if the Gospels which came to be canonical were already existing and
it was at the same time possible to re-tell them as freely as the Gospel of Peter
and others do, this means that they were perhaps much less sacrosanct than we
sometimes tend to suppose.58
material into “stories of the end of times” combining, for example, material from 2 Thessalon-
ians 2, Revelation, Daniel, Ezekiel, and others, like, for example, 1 Corinthians 15.
58 Regarding the canon-historical implications of this observation, see also the thoughts
on the Unknown Gospel on Papyrus Egerton 2 in T. Nicklas, “Christian Apocrypha and the
Development of the Christian Canon,” EC 5 (2014): 220–40, esp. 229–31.
List of Contributors
Stefan Alkier, Professor für Neues Testament und Geschichte der Alten Kirche an
der Goethe-Universität Frankfurt a. M. (Germany)
Paul N. Anderson, Professor of Biblical and Quaker Studies at George Fox Uni-
versity (Newberg, Oregon, USA), and Extraordinary Professor of Religion at
North-West University (Potchefstroom, South Africa)
Carl Johan Berglund, Director of Studies and Lecturer at Stockholm School of
Theology (Sweden)
C. Clifton Black, Otto A. Piper Professor of Biblical Theology at Princeton Theo-
logical Seminary (New Jersey, USA)
Cilliers Breytenbach, Universitätsprofessor a. D. für Neues Testament mit dem
Schwerpunkt Religions-, Literatur- und Zeitgeschichte des Urchristentums an
der Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin (Germany), und Professor Ordinary of
New Testament and Classics at Stellenbosch University (South Africa)
Richard A. Burridge, Dean and Professor Emeritus of Biblical Interpretation at
King’s College London (England)
Robert Matthew Calhoun, Research Assistant to the Bradford Chair at Texas
Christian University (Fort Worth, Texas, USA)
R. Alan Culpepper, Dean and Professor Emeritus of New Testament, at MacAfee
School of Theology, Mercer University (Atlanta, Georgia, USA), and Research
Fellow at the Department of Old and New Testament at the University of the
Free State (Bloemfontein, South Africa)
John A. Darr, Associate Professor of New Testament at Boston College (Mas-
sachusetts, USA)
Michal Beth Dinkler, Associate Professor of New Testament at Yale Divinity
School (New Haven, Connecticut, USA)
Wolfgang Grünstäudl, Akademischer Oberrat (Biblische und Historische Theo
logie) an der Bergischen Universität Wuppertal (Germany)
Thomas R. Hatina, Professor of Religion and Culture at Trinity Western Univer-
sity (Langley Township, British Columbia, Canada), and Visiting Professor at
Charles University (Prague, Czech Republic)
488 List of Contributors
Sandra Huebenthal, Professorin für Exegese und Biblische Theologie an der

Universität Passau (Germany)
Werner H. Kelber, Isla Carroll and Percy E. Turner Professor Emeritus at Rice
University (Houston, Texas, USA)
Margaret M. Mitchell, Shailer Mathews Distinguished Service Professor of New
Testament and Early Christian Literature at the University of Chicago (Illinois,
USA)
David P. Moessner, A. A. Bradford Chair and Professor of Religion at Texas
Christian University (Fort Worth, Texas, USA)
Tobias Nicklas, Professor für Exegese und Hermeneutik des Neuen Testaments
an der Universität Regensburg (Germany), und Adjunct Ordinary Professor an
der Catholic University of America (Washington, District of Columbia, USA)
Elizabeth E. Shively, Senior Lecturer in New Testament Studies at the University
of St Andrews (Scotland)
Justin Marc Smith, Assistant Professor of New Testament at Asuza Pacific Uni-
versity (Azusa, California, USA)
Geert Van Oyen, Professor of New Testament at the Catholic University of
Louvain (Louvain-la-Neuve, Belgium)
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Index of References
Hebrew Bible/Septuaginat/Old Testament
Genesis 35:5 371

1–3 258
1:24 258 Leviticus
2–3 476 19:18 368
2:7 240 24:5–9 369
2:24 365
3:15 258 Numbers
4:8–12 258 11:16–30 408
9:4–6 258 21:8 362, 363
9:4–5 258 27:15–17 279
9:6 258 27:18 408
37–50 312 28:9–10 369
37–47 258
37:20 258 Deuteronomy
37:32–33 258 9:5 371
18:11 274
Exodus 18:15–22 443, 455, 457
1 381 18:15–19 252
3:6 238 18:15–18 381
3:10 250 18:15 382
3:15 238 21:18–21 255
4:14 371 28:47 371
4:21 371 34:9–12 252
7:13 371 34:9 408
16:15 279 34:10–12 252
16:32 279
19:16–25 261–62 Joshua
20:1–23:19 251 1:1–11 252
23 265 1:16–18 252
23:21–23 250 24 381
23:20 147, 226, 244, 250, 251,
255, 258, 259 Judges
24 251 3:10 408
24:3–8 279 6:34 408
25:30 369 11:29 408
32:30–34 258 13:25 408
32:34 259
32:35 259 1 Samuel
33:2 259 2:6 238
542 Index of References
10:1–8 276 33:6 133

10:10 409 35:11 295
11:6 408 35:13–15 295
16:3 409 37:32 295
21:6 369 41:9 295
42 329
1 Kings 42:5 295
17:8–16 270, 279 42:11 295
17:17–24 238 43 329
43:5 295
2 Kings 51:10 371
1:8 226 64:32 133
2:9–12 290 69:20 371
2:9–11 386 69:21 290, 296
2:9 409 70:4 133
4:1–7 279 73:1 371
4:31–37 238 75:8 279
4:42–44 279 86:11–12 371
13:21 238 101:2 371
22:19 271 109:25 296
110:1 294, 296
Job 140:8 295
1:1 365
4:15–16 274 Proverbs
20:8 274 27:11 371
23:16 371 31:8 210
Psalms Isaiah
8:3 133 6:9–10 161, 168, 169, 174, 261
10:7–8 295 6:10 174, 175
21 LXX 308, 325, 326–28 8 172
21:2 LXX 325, 328, 355 11 172
22 212, 290, 307, 308, 313, 25:6–8 279
325, 326–28, 330, 332, 28 172
333 28:16 168
22:1–18 327 29:13 260
22:1 268, 296 35:4 371
22:2 325, 328, 330 40–55 253–56, 257–69, 270
22:6 295 40 172, 244, 245, 253
22:7 296 40:1 252
22:8 295 40:3–5 169
22:18 296 40:3 147, 161, 226, 244, 252,
22:19–31 327 257, 455
22:23–32 328 40:6 252
24 370 40:8 252
24:3–6 370 40:9 252
27:12 295 40:10–11 252
28:11 295 41–55 253
Hebrew Bible/Septuaginat/Old Testament 543
41 253 50:10 253
41:1–7 256 50:11 255
41:8–16 256 51 253
41:8 253 51:5 172
41:9 253 52–53 172, 174
41:25–29 256 52:3–10 267
42 253, 258 52:7 168, 268
42:1–7 253 52:13–53:12 167–71, 255, 267
42:1–6 256 52:13–15 267
42:1–4 253–54, 258 52:13 253
42:1 253, 258, 375 52:15 168, 260, 295
42:5 253 53 147, 161, 169, 170, 171,
42:6–7 254 172, 175, 269
42:12 279 53:1–6 255, 256, 269
42:19 253 53:1 168, 169, 174, 175
43:10 253 53:4 170
44:1–3 254 53:5–12 256
44:1 253 53:6 295
44:2 253 53:7 170, 253, 255, 285, 295
44:21 253 53:10–12 256, 269
44:24–28 258 53:10 255
44:25 266 53:11–12 267
44:26 253, 254 53:11 255
45:4 253, 260 53:12 166, 170, 172, 255, 260,
45:14 253 267, 295
46 253 54 253
46:10 266 54:16 362, 363
47 253 55 253
47:3 267 55:3–5 267
48:20 253 55:8 266
49 256 61:1 161, 409
49:1–6 254, 256, 263 65:1 168
49:1 254 65:2 (LXX) 168
49:2 254 65:17 171
49:3 253, 254 66:22 171
49:4–6 254
49:4 254, 268 Jeremiah
49:5 253 1:2 210
49:6–7 260 7:11 LXX 289
49:6 253, 254, 255, 263 9:19 210
49:7 253, 255, 256, 263 31:31–34 279
49:8 263
49:26 109 Ezekiel
50:4–11 255 23:32–34 279
50:4–7 267 34:1–31 279
50:4–6 255
50:6 268, 295 Daniel
50:9 268 3 312, 313
3:1–30 298 Malachi

3:15–22 298 3 251, 257, 265
6 312, 313 3:1–2 251
6:1–28 298 3:1 147, 226, 244, 245,
7–12 264 250–52
7–8 265 3:4 251
7 258, 295 3:5–7 251
7:1–28 265 3:5–6 290
7:9 293 3:5 251
7:13–14 264 3:7 251
7:13 228, 264, 296 3:17–21 259–60
7:15–18 293 3:17–18 251
7:18 264, 266 3:17 251, 260
7:22 266 3:18 260
7:26–27 264, 265 3:19 251, 260
7:26 264 3:20–21 251
8:15–26 293 3:22 251, 252
9:21 293 3:23 (4:5) 250, 251, 262
10:2–14 293 3:24 (4:4) 251
Hosea Wisdom of Solomon

6:6 369, 370 2:12–20 325
3:9 468
Joel 17:4 274
2:1–2 355 17:14 274
2:28–32 410
3:4 355 Sirach
1:1 366
Amos 48 290
5:18 355
5:20 355 1 Maccabees
1:10–9:73 266
Micah 3:26 293
7:6 377 3:33 293
4:19–25 277
Habakkuk 5:45–54 277
3:7 279 6:43–46 298, 325
13:48–49 277
Zechariah 13:49–51 277
7:12 366
9–14 295 2 Maccabees
9:11 295 3:1–15:36 266
13:7–9 295 6:7–17 298
13:7 268, 269, 296 6:18–31 298, 325
14:4 295 6:28 298
14:9 295 7:1–42 298, 313, 325
7:1 313
7:2 313
Rabbinic Literature 545
7:3 298 15:9 366
7:4 298, 313 17:45–46 298
7:5–7 313
7:12 313 4 Maccabees
7:33 298 5:1–7:23 298
7:37–38 298, 329 5:1–38 325–26
7:45–46 298 5:3 298
8:3–4 329 8:1–17:1 298
11:8–10 293 18:10 366
14:37–46 298, 325
Old Testament Pseudepigrapha
2 Baruch Testament of Moses

29:5–8 279 9:1–10:10 298
1 Enoch Vision of Ezra

37–71 228 37–38 478
62:12–14 279
Dead Sea Scrolls
1QH 4.17 373

2.18 363 4.19 373
3.4–5 371 4.22 373
3.8–9 371 4.23–24 372–33
5.13–14 371 5.13 370
8.4 363
8.16 363 1QSa
11.2 371 2.11–22 279
1QS CD
1.9–10 373 3.16 363
3.13–4.26 372 5.19–6.1 362
4.6–8 373 6.2–11 362–63
4.12–13 373 19.34 363
Rabbinic Literature
b. ‘Abod. Zar. 4:2 367

18b 290
’Abot. R. Nat.
m. ’Abot 4 [B 8] 369
2:1 367
b. B. Meṣ. b. Šabb.
84a 290 33b 290
Pesiq. Rab. t. Yad.

4.2 250 2:20 370
New Testament
Matthew 6:1 367

1:1–18 146 6:2–4 366
1:1 364 6:5–13 366
1:17 364 6:14–15 369
1:21 364, 377 6:14 375
3:3 169 6:16–18 366, 374, 376
3:8 375 6:19–21 375
3:9 132 6:20 376
3:10–12 373 6:30 377
3:10 375 6:33 367, 376
4:15–16 169 7:1–2 368
4:23–24 126 7:2 375
5:5 375, 376 7:7–11 366
5:7 377 7:12 366, 367, 368
5:8 370 7:15 374
5:10–12 375 7:16–20 371
5:12 376 7:17–19 375
5:15 391 7:19 373
5:17–20 365, 366, 369, 375 7:21–23 126, 374
5:17 366, 369, 377 7:22 373
5:18 365 7:23 374
5:19 366, 376 7:24–27 364
5:20 126, 375 7:29 364
5:21–7:11 368 8:2–4 475
5:21–48 368, 371 8:5–17 448
5:22 126, 373, 374 8:9 364
5:27–30 374 8:12 375
5:28 126 8:16 126, 373
5:29–30 126, 373 8:17 147, 169, 170
5:31–32 366 8:26 377
5:32 126 9:2 364
5:33–37 366 9:6 364
5:43–47 369 9:8 365
5:44–47 126 9:11 373
5:44–45 375 9:13 369, 377
5:48 365 9:14 373
6:1–18 375, 376 9:17 365
6:1–6 374 9:22 376
New Testament 547
9:29 376 13:14–15 174
9:33 373 13:36–43 374
9:34 373, 374 13:19 371
9:35 126 13:20–23 371
10:1 128, 373 13:23 375
10:8 128, 373 13:38 140
10:28 137, 373 13:39 375
10:34 377 13:40 373
10:35 377 13:41 374, 375
10:40–42 376 13:42 373
11:10 390 13:43 375
11:11 376 13:47–48 375
11:13 366 13:49 375
11:15 391 13:50 373
11:18 373 13:54 364
11:19 364 14:14 126
11:20–24 374 14:20 459
11:23 373, 376 14:26 274
11:27–29 377 14:31 377
11:27 133, 364, 365, 377 15:1 373
11:28–30 134 15:8–9 169
12:2 366, 374 15:8 371
12:3 364 15:12 373
12:4 369 15:18–20 371
12:5–7 366, 367 15:27 459
12:5 364, 369 15:30 126
12:6 370 16:4 374
12:11–12 366 16:8 377
12:14 374 16:17–19 459
12:15 126 16:18 373, 377
12:18 169, 375 16:27 375, 376
12:20 375 16:28 377
12:24 373, 374 17:1–9 388
12:27 373 17:1–8 382
12:28 373 17:18 373
12:32 376 17:20 377
12:33 375 18:4 376
12:34 371 18:6–7 374
12:36 375 18:8–9 373
12:38 374 18:9 373
12:39 374 18:23 375
12:41–42 370, 375 18:25–35 369
12:42 364, 374 18:33 377
12:43 371 19:1–9 366
12:45 371, 374 19:2 126
13 140 19:3 374
13:9 391 19:4 365
13:13–15 169 19:7–8 365
19:16 365 23:25–26 374

19:17 375 23:25 374
19:21 376 23:27 374
19:25–26 377 23:28 374
19:29 375, 376 23:29 374
19:30 376 23:33 373
20:1–16 376 23:34–39 216
20:21 289, 376 23:35 374
20:23 376 23:36 374
20:28 377 23:37–39 388
21:11–13 375 23:37 376
21:14 126, 448, 460 24 378
21:16 364 24:2 376
21:18–19 376 24:3 375
21:21–22 376 24:12 374
21:23–27 364 24:15–28 376
21:23 364 24:22 377
21:24 364 24:27 375
21:27 364 24:31 375, 377
21:28–31 375 24:35 365
21:32 367 24:37 375
21:33–46 374 24:39 375
21:41 376 24:44 375
21:42 364 24:45–51 374
21:45 373, 374 24:46 375
22:1–10 279 24:50–51 126
22:7 376 24:51 373, 374
22:10 375 25:1–13 375
22:13 373 25:10–12 126
22:15 374 25:14–30 375
22:31 364 25:19 375
22:34–40 367, 374 25:21 375
22:34 374 25:23 375
22:35 367 25:30 126, 373, 374
22:36–40 367 25:31–46 375
22:40 367–68 25:31 375
22:41 374 25:32 377
23 374 25:34 375, 376
23:4 374 25:40 374
23:5 374 25:41–46 126
23:12 376 25:41 133, 373, 374
23:13 374 25:44–45 126
23:15 373, 374 25:45 374
23:16–22 366 25:46 374
23:16 374 26:28 377
23:23–28 126 26:47 282
23:23 366, 367, 368, 374, 375, 26:52 376
376 26:72 284
New Testament 549
26:74 284 1:4–13 244
27:1 282 1:4–8 243, 244, 245
27:15 282 1:4 111, 195, 198, 226, 254,
27:20 282 257
27:24 282, 480 1:6 195, 226
27:25 282 1:7–8 245, 259
27:32 288 1:9–13 245
27:38 289 1:9–11 216, 243, 257, 290
27:42 377 1:9 194, 195, 226, 287
27:44 289, 296 1:10 226, 257, 290
27:46 290 1:11 226, 257, 264, 291, 332
27:47 477 1:12–13 258, 261
27:51–53 296, 377 1:12 227
27:54 478, 480 1:13 194, 227, 254, 258, 265,
27:55–56 296 292, 294
27:59 293, 477 1:14–15 111, 198, 210, 227, 233,
27:62–66 479 243, 245, 257
27:62–64 479 1:14 194, 195, 213, 227, 259,
27:62 373 265, 267, 271, 287, 447
27:64 282, 479 1:15 210, 244, 245, 246, 257,
27:65 479 259, 261, 265, 287
27:66 479 1:16–14:42 222
28:2 293, 296 1:16–20 227, 231, 259
28:4 479 1:18 231, 291
28:5 293 1:21–10:52 215
28:18 364, 365, 377 1:21–34 280
28:20 365 1:21–32 195
1:21–28 194, 216, 228
Mark 1:22 228, 229
1–13 304 1:23 228, 265
1–3 229 1:24 194, 265
1 229, 448 1:27 228, 229
1:1–15:46 5, 224 1:28 210
1:1–15 243 1:29–31 229, 291
1:1–13 198, 227 1:31 229, 292
1:1–3 226, 233, 243–71 1:34 194
1:1–2 158, 225 1:35–36 282
1:1 4, 109, 111, 158, 198, 201, 1:35 280
210, 212, 219, 225, 243, 1:38 227
244, 245, 259, 261, 264, 1:40–45 475
268, 269, 284, 332 1:43 228
1:2–3 4, 147, 148, 153, 154, 169, 1:45 281, 282
198, 243, 244, 262, 270 2:1–12 280
1:2 4, 195, 198, 212, 226, 245, 2:1 260
251, 256, 259, 274, 390 2:2 227
1:3 199, 226, 244, 245, 252, 2:4 281
257, 259 2:5 228
1:4–15 210 2:6–7 231
2:6 289 4:10 230

2:7 227–28 4:11 303
2:9 229, 464 4:12 154, 169, 174, 242, 261,
2:13–17 228 289
2:13 281, 287 4:13–20 230
2:14–15 291 4:14–15 210
2:15 227 4:20 225
2:16 289 4:21 391
2:17 189 4:22–23 304
2:18–22 227 4:23 391
2:18 195 4:24 289
2:19–20 276 4:25 274
2:20 274 4:33–34 260
2:23–3:6 195 4:35–36 282
2:23–28 227 4:36 281
2:23–26 369 4:40 293
2:23 281 4:41 229, 242
2:28 228 5–8 233
3 227 5 281
3:3 229 5:1–43 280
3:5 228 5:1–20 232
3:6 228, 240, 260, 263 5:7 235
3:7–8 227 5:18–20 111
3:9 281, 282 5:20 285
3:10 194 5:21–43 232
3:11 265 5:21–24 232, 280, 282
3:14–15 259 5:21 280, 281
3:16–17 259 5:22 280, 293
3:18 288 5:23 280
3:19 213, 267, 274 5:24–34 280, 282
3:20–21 260 5:24 280, 281
3:20 260, 281, 282 5:25–43 293
3:21 282, 292 5:25–26 280
3:22–30 109, 189 5:26 280
3:22 289 5:27–28 280
3:23–27 260 5:27 281
3:31–35 260 5:28 280
3:31 292 5:30 281
3:32 281, 282, 287 5:31 280, 281
3:35 198 5:32 280
3:38 229 5:33 280
4 230, 231, 239 5:34 280
4:1–34 195 5:35–43 280, 287, 293
4:1 281, 287 5:35–36 293
4:3–9 230 5:35 280, 282
4:9 391 5:36 280
4:10–13 242 5:37 280
4:10–12 230, 261 5:38 280, 281, 293
New Testament 551
5:39–40 280 6:44 278
5:40 280 6:45–8:26 394
5:41–42 280 6:45–51 260
5:41 229, 232 6:45 281, 282
6 232, 279 6:46 280
6:1–6 393 6:49–50 242
6:1 291 6:49 274
6:2 228 6:50 232, 261
6:3 194, 232, 288, 292 6:51–52 281
6:4 232 6:52 230, 261, 279
6:5 393 6:53–55 282
6:6–13 128, 393 7:1–23 232
6:6 285 7:1–13 189
6:7–9:40 393 7:1 289
6:7–16 259 7:5 289
6:7–13 232, 383 7:6–7 154, 260
6:7 393 7:6 169
6:10–13 259 7:7 169
6:13 259 7:13 210
6:14–29 286, 287 7:14 281
6:14–22 195 7:15 189
6:14–16 232 7:17 281
6:14 195, 229, 286 7:24–37 280
6:16–25 195 7:24–30 45, 263
6:16 229, 286 7:24 282
6:17–29 232, 263, 286 7:27–28 279
6:19 286 7:36 282
6:20 286 7:33 281
6:22–25 286 7:37 228
6:24 286 8–13 329
6:26–28 286 8–10 329
6:26 286 8 232, 265, 279, 328
6:27–28 290 8:1–10 232, 276, 278, 279, 286
6:29 232, 292 8:1–3 291
6:30–56 280 8:1 278, 281, 287
6:30–44 232, 260, 276, 278, 279, 8:2 278, 279, 281
287 8:3–4 279
6:30–33 282 8:6 278, 280, 281
6:31–32 279 8:7 278
6:34 279, 281 8:8 278, 279, 459
6:35 278, 279 8:11–12 290
6:36 278 8:11 260
6:37 278 8:12 290
6:38 278 8:14–21 215, 232, 245, 261, 279,
6:40 278 281, 289
6:41 278, 280 8:15 195, 260
6:42 278, 459 8:16–21 242
6:43 278, 279 8:16 261
8:22–26 194, 280 9:17 281

8:27–16:8 296 9:19 234
8:27–9:13 263 9:22 234
8:27–33 261 9:23 234
8:27 222 9:24 234
8:28 195 9:25 281
8:29–32 233 9:26–27 234
8:29–30 284 9:27 229, 234
8:29 209, 233, 284 9:28–29 245
8:30 245 9:30–32 245, 267, 314, 328, 332
8:31–38 458 9:31–32 263
8:31–32 233, 288, 328, 332 9:31 189, 212, 213, 267, 274,
8:31 189, 194–95, 198, 212, 280, 281, 283, 284, 285,
213, 263, 274, 280, 281, 303
283, 284, 289, 303, 314 9:32 235, 242
8:32–33 215, 267 9:33–37 235, 263, 267, 268, 281,
8:33 233, 265 393
8:34–9:1 189 9:37 235
8:34–38 233, 264, 267 9:38–41 263, 267
8:34–35 263 9:41–50 235
8:34 209, 239, 281, 288, 291 9:41 278, 284
8:35 210, 266, 284, 288, 289 9:42–48 261, 267, 268
8:37 276 9:49–50 261
8:38 294 10 235, 329
9:1 261, 459 10:1 281
9:2–13 263 10:2–9 216
9:2–10 388 10:2 260
9:2–8 290, 382 10:5–9 260
9:2 195 10:5–6 189
9:3 233, 241, 294 10:6–12 260
9:4 233 10:6 211
9:5–6 281 10:13–16 235, 245, 264, 267, 281
9:6 233, 242 10:17–27 235
9:7 234, 261, 264, 287, 291, 10:17–21 216
332 10:17 244, 245
9:9–10 215 10:21–22 231
9:9 213, 214, 234, 274 10:24 280
9:10 234, 242, 262 10:26 228
9:11–18 234 10:28–31 235, 267
9:11 262 10:28 274, 294
9:12–13 189, 195 10:30 235
9:12 262 10:31 274
9:13 234, 262, 263, 290 10:32–34 189, 213, 236, 263, 314,
9:14–29 234, 280 328, 332
9:14 281, 282, 289 10:32 235, 242, 244, 245
9:15 281 10:33–34 212, 274, 280, 281, 283,
9:17–24 265 284, 303, 304
9:17–19 267 10:33 213, 267, 289, 328
New Testament 553
10:34 263, 328 12:1–2 331
10:35–40 215, 263, 264, 267 12:9 274
10:36 289 12:12 281, 282, 287
10:37 289 12:13–17 216
10:38–39 281, 289, 458 12:13 260
10:38 278, 289 12:15 260
10:39 274, 278, 279, 289 12:17 285
10:40 289 12:18–27 237
10:41–45 267 12:18 237
10:42–44 264 12:23 237
10:44–45 266 12:24–27 237
10:44 332 12:24 186, 238
10:45 236, 263, 276, 288, 289, 12:25 294
292, 298, 304, 329 12:26 238
10:46–52 194, 268, 280 12:28–34 216
10:46–48 268 12:34 293
10:46 194, 281 12:35 284
10:48 282 12:36–37 262
10:49 227 12:36 294
10:52 236, 244, 245, 291 12:37 281, 287
11–13 329 12:38 289
11:1–11 277, 285 12:41–44 275
11:1–10 236 12:41 276, 281
11:1–6 277 12:44 275
11:1–2 276, 277 13 238, 239, 240
11:1 277, 387 13:1–2 274, 276
11:2 277 13:2 209
11:3–5 276 13:5–37 274
11:3 276, 277 13:7 238
11:4 277 13:9–13 111, 264
11:6 276, 277 13:9 298
11:7 277 13:10 210, 215
11:8–10 277, 278 13:14 239, 271, 326
11:9–10 266, 288 13:19 211
11:11 236 13:20 194
11:12–25 331 13:24–27 239, 263, 266, 267
11:12–14 236 13:24–25 290
11:12 236 13:24 267
11:15–19 236 13:26 239, 240
11:17 154, 289 13:27 263, 266, 294
11:18 228, 281, 287, 289 13:30–31 239
11:20–25 236 13:32–37 266
11:25 287 13:32 195, 198, 239, 287, 294
11:27–13:37 195 13:33–37 280
11:27 289 14–16 274–305
11:30–32 195 14–15 329, 352
11:32 237, 281, 282, 287 14 239, 281, 330
12:1–12 146, 216 14:1–16:8 296
14:1 275, 276, 289, 295 14:32 275, 280

14:3–9 268, 275–76 14:33 280, 298
14:3 275, 288 14:34 280, 295, 329
14:5 275 14:35–36 240, 280, 286
14:7 276 14:35 280
14:8 276, 293 14:36 198, 278, 280, 281, 287,
14:9 210, 215, 239, 274, 296 289
14:10–11 239, 268, 276, 295 14:37–38 280, 286
14:10 213, 267, 289 14:38 281
14:11 213, 267 14:39 280, 286
14:12–30 329 14:40–41 280
14:12–25 239 14:40 281, 286
14:12–17 277 14:41–42 267, 280, 281, 286
14:12–16 275, 276–77 14:41 213, 280, 286, 291, 295
14:12 278 14:42–43 280
14:13–16 277 14:42 213, 267, 268
14:13–15 276 14:43–16:8 222
14:13 274, 277 14:43–50 329
14:14 277, 278 14:43 275, 281–82, 319
14:16 276, 277, 278 14:44 213, 267, 295
14:17–21 215 14:46 189, 294
14:17–18 278 14:48–49 330
14:17 278 14:48 275, 281–82, 289
14:18–21 268, 279 14:49 268, 289, 330
14:18 213, 267, 274, 278, 295 14:50 268
14:21–22 281 14:51–52 293, 294
14:21 189, 195, 213, 267, 286, 14:51 293
295, 304 14:53–15:39 298
14:22–25 275, 278–79 14:53–72 275, 282–84
14:22–24 279 14:53–65 330
14:22 278, 279 14:53–54 283
14:23–24 281 14:53 283
14:23 278, 279 14:54 283, 284, 291
14:24–26 278, 295 14:55–65 283, 286
14:24 279, 281, 298 14:55–56 283
14:25 277, 279 14:55 283, 292, 295
14:26–31 268 14:57–59 283
14:27–31 279 14:57 295
14:27–30 274 14:58 209, 331
14:27 195, 268, 279, 296 14:60–61 268, 283
14:28 213, 214, 229, 236, 293, 14:60 285
295 14:61–65 209
14:29–31 284 14:61–62 291
14:30 291 14:61 264, 283, 284, 285, 295
14:31 215 14:62–64 284
14:32–42 215, 240, 275, 280–81, 14:62–63 290
295, 329, 330 14:62 240, 264, 274, 283, 285,
14:32–36 268 294, 296, 320, 326
New Testament 555
14:63 290 15:19 286, 290
14:64 231, 283, 284, 292 15:20 286
14:65 268, 283, 284, 285, 286, 15:21–32 285
295 15:21–28 285
14:66–72 231, 268, 283, 286 15:21 275, 288
14:66 283 15:22–39 212
14:67 194 15:22 244
14:68 283, 284, 286 15:23–24 289
14:69 283 15:23 290
14:70–72 288 15:24 286, 296, 298, 353
14:70 283, 286 15:25–32 329, 330
14:71 283, 286 15:25 286, 289
14:72 283, 286, 291 15:26 284, 285
15 239, 240, 281, 326, 327, 15:27 275, 285, 286, 289
330 15:29–30 289
15:1–32 287 15:29 285, 286, 296
15:1–15 195, 281, 286, 330 15:30–31 295
15:1–5 275, 284–86 15:30 285
15:1–4 326 15:31–32 289
15:1 213, 267, 284, 295 15:31 275, 289
15:2 284, 285 15:32 275, 284, 285, 289, 295,
15:3 286 296
15:4–5 295 15:33–47 352
15:4 285 15:33–39 291
15:5 268, 285 15:33–37 352–53, 354
15:6–32 285 15:33 240, 290, 355
15:6–15 275, 285, 287–88, 295 15:34–37 350–55
15:6 286, 287 15:34–36 289
15:7 286, 287 15:34 2, 268, 285, 291, 296, 301,
15:8–10 285 307–33, 351, 353, 355
15:8 275, 281–82, 285, 287 15:35–36 275, 289–90
15:9–10 287 15:35 269
15:9 284, 285, 286, 287 15:36 289, 290, 296
15:10 213, 267, 285, 286, 295 15:37 240, 289, 290, 330
15:11 275, 281–82, 285, 286, 15:38–39 275, 290–91
287 15:38 290, 291, 331
15:12 284, 285, 286, 287 15:39 209, 213, 226, 263, 264,
15:13–14 286, 288 291, 295, 331, 332, 333,
15:13 285, 287 478, 480
15:14–15 285 15:40–41 275, 291–92, 330
15:14 286, 287 15:40 291, 292, 295, 296
15:15 213, 267, 268, 281, 282, 15:41 292
285, 286, 287, 295 15:42–47 275, 292–93
15:16–39 285 15:42 240, 292
15:16–32 268, 275, 284–86 15:43–44 195
15:16–20 209, 285, 329, 330 15:43 240, 293, 477
15:17 286 15:45–46 240
15:18 284 15:46 293
15:47–16:8 5, 224 9:1 393

15:47 240, 241, 292 9:2 393, 394
16 482 9:3 391, 392
16:1–8 111, 179, 213, 291, 298, 9:4–5 383
327, 482, 483, 484 9:6 394
16:1 241, 482, 483 9:10 6, 389, 392–94, 395
16:2 482, 483 9:17 382, 459
16:3–4 482 9:18–19 252
16:4 241, 482, 483 9:18 382
16:5–7 275, 293–94 9:20 384
16:5–6 294, 483 9:21 384
16:5 228, 296, 479, 483 9:28–10:42 381, 382, 384, 395
16:6 214, 219, 229, 231, 241, 9:28–36 386
331, 333, 483 9:28 386
16:7 230, 236, 242, 483, 484 9:31 388, 389, 394, 395
16:8 219, 229, 237, 242, 268, 9:37–43 393
483 9:40 393
9:43 393
Luke 9:45–46 393
1–4 409 9:46–48 393
1–2 403 9:50 384
1:1–4 401 9:51–10:24 394
1:3 78 9:51–56 386
2:22 387 9:51 6, 381–96
3:2 411 9:52–56 386
3:4–6 169 9:52 393, 394
3:16–17 391 9:53 387
4:16–30 299, 393 9:62 384
4:16 409 10 383, 384
4:17 146 10:1–20 6, 389, 392–94, 395
4:18–19 146, 169 10:1–17 383
4:25–27 146 10:1–16 383
4:43–44 389 10:1 128, 384, 393, 394
5:12–16 475 10:2–16 383
7:27 390, 391, 394 10:4 391, 392
8:1–10:42 387 10:8–9 128
8:1–3 389 10:9 394
8:8 391 10:11 394
8:10 169, 174 10:16 394
8:16 391 10:17–20 393
9–10 381, 382, 384, 389–94, 10:18 393, 394
395 10:21 393
9 382, 383, 384 10:25 367
9:1–10:20 394, 395 11:1–18:30 387
9:1–10:17 382, 384 11:33 391
9:1–50 382, 394 12:7 390
9:1–6 6, 128, 383, 389, 392–94, 13:1 287
395 13:22 386, 387, 388, 389, 395
New Testament 557
13:31–35 386 23:32 289
13:33 388, 395 23:33 289
13:34–35 388, 395 23:34 299
14:16–24 279 23:39 289
14:35 391 23:40 296
15:11–32 45 23:46 299, 331
16:16 366 23:47 478, 479
17:11 386, 387, 388, 389, 395 23:48 282, 479
18 384 23:52 477
18:30–31 385 23:53 293
18:31–21:38 387 24:4 296
18:31 386, 387 24:23 293
18:34 385 24:44 366
19 384 24:49 410
19:10 385
19:11 395 John
19:27 385 1:1–5 447
19:28 385, 386, 387, 388, 395 1:1 133, 146
19:40 385 1:6–8 455
19:41 385 1:7 438
19:44 385 1:9–14 447
19:46 385 1:9–13 450
19:48 385 1:10–14 438
21:18 390 1:10–13 444
22:3 170 1:11 175
22:6 282 1:13 470
22:20 377, 407 1:14–17 468
22:27 147 1:14 432
22:35–38 392, 395 1:15 455
22:35–36 6, 392 1:16–18 431, 447
22:37 166 1:19–21 455
22:38 392 1:19 139
22:39–46 329 1:23 169, 455
22:47–23:46 299 1:24 437
22:47 282 1:30 455
22:54–62 282 1:31 455
22:66–71 282 1:45 366, 430
23:4 282 1:46 460
23:5 282 2:11 448
23:6–12 477 2:12 142
23:7 387 2:17 423
23:10 478 2:18–20 455
23:11 478 2:20 142
23:12 477, 478 2:22 417, 419, 423, 431
23:13 282 3 456
23:14 282 3:1–17 356
23:26 288 3:1 457
23:27 282 3:5 456
3:14 431 7–10 457, 463

3:18–21 470 7 455, 456
3:19 133 7:12–13 460
3:24 447 7:12 282
3:25–26 456 7:13 483
3:28–30 456 7:16–18 443
3:29 431 7:19–24 431
3:30 455 7:31 282
3:31–36 456 7:32 282, 457
4 91, 420 7:40–52 455
4:1 457 7:40 282
4:22 138 7:43 282
4:27–42 140 7:45–48 457
4:28 141 7:45 457
4:35 140 7:49–51 456
4:40–42 140 7:49 282
4:46–54 139, 448 8:12 466
4:50 449 8:13 457
4:51–53 449 8:17–18 431
4:54 448 8:32 469
5 455, 463, 464 8:39 431
5:1–15 448 8:42 431, 467
5:10–15 455 8:44 431
5:13 282 9 441, 460–62, 463, 464, 465
5:16–17 455 9:1–10:21 441–70
5:17 463 9:1–41 448
5:18–47 455 9:1–12 463
5:21 432 9:1–2 463
5:27 432 9:2 463
5:39 417, 431 9:3–5 463
5:42 456, 467 9:5 466
5:45 431 9:6–7 449
5:46 431 9:7 462
6 441, 449, 451, 458, 460 9:8–10 463
6:1–15 449 9:11 464
6:2 282 9:13–34 463
6:5 282 9:13 457
6:22 282 9:15 457, 464
6:24 282 9:16 457, 464
6:26 459 9:17 464
6:27–58 449 9:18–24 464
6:40 432 9:22 462
6:45 169 9:24 464
6:49–59 431 9:25 464
6:51–70 458 9:26–29 465
6:51–58 458 9:28–29 431
6:60–66 458 9:28 457
6:67–70 459 9:30–33 465
New Testament 559
9:34 465 14:15–26 417
9:35–10:21 463 14:29 457
9:35–39 465 14:30 432
9:39–41 449 15:20 423
9:39 466 15:25 431
9:40 457, 466 16:2 462
9:41 466 16:4 423
10 462, 463 16:21 423
10:1–5 466 17:2 432
10:7–18 466, 467 17:8 443
10:7–10 467, 468 17:12 431
10:10 431 18–19 451, 476
10:16 468 18:3 457
10:18 432 18:9 431, 457
10:19–21 469 18:28–19:38 457
10:21 462 18:32 431, 457
10:22 462 18:33–40 289
10:24–39 457 19:25–30 331
10:30 443 19:25 291, 296
11:1–45 448 19:31 477
11:1–44 432 19:32–33 476
11:23 449 19:34–35 458
11:36 467 19:35 417, 431, 439
11:38–44 449 19:36 476
11:42 282 19:38–42 476
11:47 457 19:38–39 460
11:50 460 19:38 477, 483
11:57 457 19:39–40 456
12 170, 175, 420 19:40 476
12:9 282 19:42 476
12:12 282 20 476
12:16 417, 418, 423 20:8 439
12:17 282 20:9 431
12:18 282 20:12 293, 296
12:29 282 20:15 476
12:34 282 20:19 460, 483
12:37–43 174, 175 20:28 457
12:38–40 168 20:30–31 129, 443, 465
12:38 147, 169, 170, 175, 431 20:31 431, 438
12:39 174 21:20–21 459
12:40 169, 174, 175 21:22–23 459
12:42–43 460 21:23–24 458
12:42 462 21:24–25 444
12:43 467 21:24 417, 439
12:46 466 21:25 420, 431
13:18 431
13:19 457 Acts
14:9–11 443 1:1–2:47 39
1:1 39 Romans
1:2 386, 410 1:1 271
1:4 410 1:2–4:17 169
1:5 410 1:2 271
1:6 41 1:4 271
1:8 410 1:16 204
1:10 293 2:16 210
1:11 386 3:21 366
1:22 386 8:15 281
2:1–36 410 9–10 161
2:17–21 410 9:6 210
2:33 410 9:27 161
3:22–23 252 9:28 161
4:19–20 458 9:33 171
4:13 405 10:14–18 168
5:36–37 287 10:16–17 210
6:1–6 410 10:16 147, 161, 168, 169, 174
6:8–8:1 299 10:20 161
6:9–10 411 10:21 161
6:9 288 11:8 168
7:37 252 11:18 174
7:59 299 13:1–8 216
7:60 299 13:8–9 216
8:4–8 410 15:12 161
8:14–17 410 15:21 147, 168
8:28 146 16:13 288
8:32–33 146, 147, 169, 170
10:19–20 410 1 Corinthians
10:44–45 410 1:18 211
11:12–18 410 1:23 211, 291
11:20 288 2:2 211
11:26 166 2:7–8 210
13:1 288 7:10–11 216
15:28 410 9:1 215
16:6–10 411 11:23–25 279
16:11–16 204 11:23 213, 278
18:24–28 456 12:4–6 137
19:1–7 456 14:36 210
19:8–10 405 15 485
20:5–16 204 15:1–8 211
21:1–8 204 15:3–8 211
26:14 398 15:3–7 215
27:1–28:16 204 15:3–4 211
27:34 390 15:3 271
28:16 169 15:4–8 214
28:26–27 174 15:4 271
28:26 169 15:9 214
15:10 215
New Testament 561
2 Corinthians 4:16–17 211
2:14–17 209
2:14–15 285 2 Thessalonians
2:17 210 2 485
4:2 210 2:11–12 137
4:3 208
4:10–12 213 2 Timothy
4:10 209 2:22 371
4:11 208–9 4:11 204
5:10 210
8:18 204 Philemon
12:9–10 213 24 204
13:4 213
Hebrews
Galatians 1:1–4 456
1:12–16 215 1:2 137
1:17–2:10 215
1:17 215 James
2:19 208, 209, 215 4:8 371
3:1 209
3:2 210 1 Peter
3:5 210 2:6 171
4:6 281 2:8 171
6:6 210 2:9–10 133
6:14 211 2:18–25 171
6:17 208 2:22–25 147, 171
3:13 171
Ephesians
2:3–5 133 1 John
5:8 137 1:1–3 448, 458
4:1–3 457
Philippians
1:14 210 2 John
2:6–7 134 7 457
4:15 210
3 John
Colossians 9–10 452, 458
1:25 210
4:14 204 Revelation
1:10 483
1 Thessalonians 1:14 293
1:5 217 2:17 293
1:6 210 3:4–5 293
1:9–10 211 3:18 293
2:13 210, 216 4:4 293
2:14–16 216 6:2 293
2:15 216 6:11 293
4:14 211 7:9 293
7:13 293 19:14 293

14:5 146 20:11 293
14:14 293 21:1 171
19:11 293
Apostolic Fathers
Didache Ignatius
14.1 483 – Magn.
9.1 483
Early Christian Literature
Acta martyrum (ed. Musurillo) 63.1 127

2.4 299 73.4 127
5.2 299 79.1–81.5 127
10.21 299 82.1–83.3 128
19.4 299 87–115 122, 124
87–105 123
Acts of John 87 124
1–17 123 88–102 124
18–86 113, 121, 122–29, 143 94–102 124
18.1–20.9 124 109 124
18.1 123, 124 113 124
19.4 123
21.1–9 124–25 Acts of Peter
21.10–23.1 125 8 (Verc.) 478
23.1–3 125
24.4–7 125 Acts of Pilate
30.1–32.2 125 16.7 480
33–36 125
33.1–2 125–26 Book of the Resurrection of Christ
36.5 125–26 8 476
37.1–44.1 126
37.1 125 Gospel of Peter
37.2 123 2 478
39–45 125 3–5 477
46.7 127 3 477, 478
47.3–7 127 6–9 478
55 123 13–14 476
55.1–2 124 13 476
58 123 14 475
58.1 124 23–24 476
62.1 124 24 476
63.1–76.7 127 29–30 479
Ancient Authors and Texts 563
30 479 50–57 481–82, 483, 484
31 478, 479 50–51 482
32–42 482 50 482, 483, 484
32–33 479 52 483, 484
38 479 53–54 482
43 479 53 483, 484
44 479 54 483
45 479, 480 55 482, 483
46 480 56–57 483
47 480 56 483
48 480 57 483, 484
Ancient Authors and Texts

Aesopica Aristotle
– Vit. Aes. – Eth. nic.
1–100 187 9.8.7–9, 312, 313, 329
1–19 187 1169a12–30
1–15 187 – Poet.
4–8 189 1, 1447a 81
16–17 187 5, 1449a32–35 241
18–19 187 6, 1449b24–1450a7 224
20–97 187 6, 1449b27 224
20–91 187 6, 1449b36–37 234
20–33 188 6, 1450a–b 82–83
20 187 6, 1450a4–5 219
34–64 188 6, 1450a38–39 224
34–37 188 8, 1451a30–35 221
35 188 8, 1451a32–34 249
37 188 9, 1451a36–b32 246
65–91 188 9, 1451b33–1452a1 221
81–91 188 11, 1452a22–24 233
82–100 188 – Rhet.
92–100 187 3.14.5–6 364
98–100 187
100 187, 189 Arrian
101–123 187 – Anab.
121–123 187 7.26.3 326
124–142 187
Artemidorus
Albertus Magnus – Onir.
– Opera omnia, ed. Borgnet 2.53 320
21:687–735 296
Augustine
Ammonius – Cons.
– Comm. Arist. Cat. 3.21.58 296
7.15–8.10 118 3.24.63 296
– Tract. Ev. Jo. Demetrius

31.11 287–88 – Eloc.
209–220 300
Bede 222 327
– Exp. act. apost.
6 401 Diodorus Siculus
16.1.2 248–49
Cassius Dio 17 24
6.23 285
58.11 285 Diogenes Laertius
64.20–21 285 – Vit. phil.
1.111 302
Cicero 1.121 303
– De or. 2.46 312
3.213–227 342 2.125 302
– Fam. 3.1–109 302
5.12.2–4 24 3.41 303
– Or. Brut. 4.44 303
55–60 342 4.61 303
– Rab. Perd. 5.1 302
16 264 6.38 302
6.76–77 303
Clement of Alexandria 6.95 303
– Ecl. 7.1 302
25.1 136 7.28 303
– Protr. 7.176 303
1.4.1–2 132 7.184 303
1.6.4 133 9.26 312
1.8.1–3 134 9.27 312, 313
1.8.3–4 134 9.59 312, 313
1.10.13 133 10.1–154 302
2.22.3 130 10.15 303
2.23.1 130 10.58–59 303
2.27.2 133
2.36.1 130, 133 Dionysius of Halicarnassus
3.1.1 130 – Comp.
4.59.2–61.4 130 6 304
4.59.3 133 20 304
4.63.1–2 133 – Pomp.
5.64.3–66.5 130 3 247
9.83.2–3 133 – Thuc.
10.101.2 133 10 249
10.106.5–107.1 133 12 249
12.120.2–5 133–34
– Strom. Epictetus
4.9.71–72 136 – Diatr.
6.14.110.3 137 1.29.18 313
7.7.36.5 131 2.2.15 313
3.23 313 11 195
12–14 195
Eunapius 12 195
– Vit. soph. 14 195
454 302 15–17 195
15–16 195
Euripides 16 196
– Bacch. 17–20 195
794–795 398 17–19 195
19 195
Eusebius 20 195
– Hist. eccl. 21–24 195
2.15 74, 117 22 195
3.25.6–7 123 24 195, 196
3.25.6 122 25–28 195
3.39 117 26 195, 196
3.39.15 72 28 195. 196
3.39.16 73 29–33 195
34–36 195
Heracleon 36 316
– fragmenta (ed. Berglund) 37 194
5.6 139 38 194
11.1–2 142
13.6 142 Hippolytus
16.3 142 [Haer.]
22.3 139 6.pr.4 136
27.1 141 6.29.1 136
32.3 140 6.35.6 136
34.1 138
34.2 138 Homer
34.3 138 – Il.
34.4 138 15.158–159 84
38.1 141 21.568–569 133
39.2 140 – Od.
40.3 139 11.222 274
Herodotus Horace
– [Vit. Hom.] – Ars
1–4 194 86–89 81
5–7 194
5 194 Irenaeus
6–7 195 – Haer.
7 195 1.1–7 137
8 194, 195 1.7.5 137
9–10 195 2.41 136
9 194. 195, 196 3 205
10 195 3.1.1 74, 204–5
11–14 195
John Chrysostom 26 190

– Hom. Matt. 39 190
88.27 293 48 190
– Paralyt. 59 190
3 296 63 190
64 190
Josephus 65 323
A. J. 66 323
5.276–284 293 67 323
11.325–339 277 – Hist. conscr.
11.342–345 277 6 304
12.312 277 40 304
12.348–349 277 48 145
13.304–306 277 50–55 304
16.12–15 277 – Ver. hist.
17.10.6–10 468 1.2 84
17.194–239 277 1.4 84
17.324–329 277
18.55–62 287 Macrobius
20.113–124 287 – Sat.
20.208–210 287 1.10.16 301
20.215 287
– B. J. Nepos
2.4–5 468 – Att.
2.167–177 287 21.1–22.4 309
2.228–257 287 21.5–6 318
5.207–214 290 25 186
7.389–406 298 – Epam.
9.3 318
Justin Martyr – Phoc.
– 1 Apol. 4.3 318
50.2 172
66.2 117 Origen
67.2 177 – Cels.
– Dial. 1.12.1 137
106.3 117 2.55.11–16 269
– Comm. Cant.
Lucian pr.1.1 118
– Alex. – Comm. Jo.
1–2 323 1.5/27–15/88 119
2 323–24 2.3/25 137
28 324 2.10/72 137
59–60 324, 332 2.10/78 137
59 324 2.14/100 138
– Demon. 2.20/135–136 137
1–2 129 2.30/182 137
3 190 6.15/92 117
11 190 6.21/115 139
6.21/117 138 7.14–8.12 302
6.23/126 137 7.14.2 314
6.39/200 138 8.1–14 314
10.11/48 142 8.28.1 323
10.33/213 142 8.29–30 302
10.37/249–250 138 8.29 302
10.38/261 142 8.30.1–3 323
13.19/115 138–39 8.30.1 323
13.31/187 141 8.30.2–3 323
13.40/271 140 8.30.2 323
13.44/294 138 8.31 302
13.52/349 141
13.53/363 140 Photius
13.60.416 139 – Bibl.
– Comm. Matt. 114 123
10.4 118
– Mart. Plato
34.70–72 137 – Apol.
– Princ. 19a 315
3.2.1 252 20e 315
21e 315
Papyrus Collections 22a 315
– P.Egerton 25d–26a 297
2 472, 475 27a–e 315
– P.Oxy. 30b–d 314, 329
9.1176 185 30c–d 313
41.2949 477 34c–35d 297
76.5072 472 35d 312
– Euthyphr.
Philo 2b 297
– Det. 4b–16a 297
127–128 131 – Phaed.
– Mos. 59b 315
1.158 431 117b–e 315
118a 307, 315, 317
Philostratus – Resp.
– Vit. Apoll. 361e–362a 314
1.2 302
1.4.1–1.5.1 323 Pliny the Younger
2.9 302 – Ep.
2.20–21 302 10.96–97 452
2.33 302 – Pan.
4.25 302 11.1 319
4.46 302
6.11 302 Plutarch
7.1 313 – Aem.
7.2.1 313 1.3 129
7.3.1 313
– Alex. 5.31.3 248

1.1–3 15–16 5.32.1–5 247
1.2–3 114, 300 7.7.6 248
76.1–77.3 326 9.2.1–2 84
– [Apoph. lac.]
215a 317 Porphyry
– Brut. – Vit. Plot.
40.7–9 322 2.1–40 309
40.7 322 2.25 324
52.8 322 – Vit. Pyth.
– Caes. 1–9 191
66.5 318–19 10–13 191
66.5–7 319 12 191
– Cat. Min. 14–18 192
67.1–2 321 16–17 192
68.2 321 18 192
68.4–5 321 19–42 192
70.1 321 19 192
70.5 321 20–21 192
70.6 322 22 192
71.1 322, 330 23 192
71.2 322 24 192
73.3 322 25 192
74.1–4 322 29 192
– Cic. 30 192
48.2–4 320 31 192
– [De Hom.] 32 192
1.4 316 33 192
– Galb. 34–35 192
27.1–2 320 38–41 192
– Luc. 42 192–93
43.1–2 309 43–45 192
– Num. 48–53 193
21.3–4 309 54–57 192
– Per. 54–56 193
1.2–4 129 55 193
– Phoc. 56–57 193
35.1–36.4 321
36.1–4 318 Quintilian
– Pomp. – Inst.
79.1–4 319, 326 2.4.21 300
– Sera 6.2.28 347
9, 554A–B 288 6.2.33–36 300
6.2.36 347
Polybius 6.3.66 300
1.4.2 248 7.2.22 300
1.5.1–5 248 8.3.61–71 300
3.23.3 248 8.3.88–89 300
8.4.3 300 11.3.176 344
8.4.9 300 11.3.177–184 342
8.5.5 300 11.3.177 346
8.6.9 300 11.3.178 345
11 346 11.3.181 345
11.3 335–53 11.3.182 345
11.3.1–14 342 12.1.1 343
11.3.2 343 12.10.49–54 343
11.3.14–65 342
11.3.14 343, 346 Seneca
11.3.30 344 – Apoc.
11.3.32 345 4 319
11.3.34–39 344 – Ep.
11.3.43–44 344 26.5–7
11.3.45–51 344
11.3.51–56 344 Stobaeus
11.3.57–60 344 – Ecl.
11.3.61–65 346 1.49.50 274
11.3.62–65 344
11.3.62 346 Suetonius
11.3.64–149 342 – Aug.
11.3.66–148 344 98–99 301
11.3.72 344 99.1–2 309, 329
11.3.75 344 99.1 309, 319
11.3.77–84 344 99.2 310
11.3.85–116 344 100 301
11.3.85 344 – Cal.
11.3.86 344 22 301
11.3.87 344 27
11.3.88–91 345 49 301
11.3.91 345 57 301
11.3.92 344 58.2 320
11.3.94 344 59–60 302
11.3.95 344 59 302
11.3.96 344 – Claud.
11.3.99 344 10.1–4 319
11.3.100 344 43.1 319
11.3.101 344 44.1–3 319
11.3.102 344 44.2–3 320
11.3.103 344, 345 45.1 319
11.3.104 344 46 301
11.3.107 345 – Dom.
11.3.122–136 345 2.3 320
11.3.137–149 345 13.2 457
11.3.149–176 342, 344 14.1 302
11.3.150 345 16.2 302
11.3.151 346 17.1–2 320
11.3.154 346 17.2 302
17.3 302 17.1–2 320

23 301
– Galb. Tacitus
18–19 301 – Agr.
19.2 320 43.1–2 322, 323
27.1–2 320 45.3 322
– Jul. – Ann.
81 301 15.60–64 314
82.2 318–19, 326 16.34–35 314
82.3 318
– Nero Tertullian
40–41 301 – Prax.
46 301 16.6 476
49.3–4 320 – Val.
– Otho 4 136
11.1–2 320
11.1 320 Thucydides
– Tib. 1.22.2–4 84
73.2 320 5.26 250
75.3 301
– Tit. Xenophon
10 301 – Apol.
10.1–2 320 1 315
10.1 320 5–7 315
11.1 320 8–9 315
– Vesp. 22 315
9.1–19.1 320 32 315
16.1–3 320 – Mem.
23 301 1.3.1 315
23.4 319 4.7.9 315
24.1 319 4.8.3 297
– Vit. 4.8.11 297, 315
9 301
Index of Modern Authors
Achtemeier, P. J. 348 212, 275, 308, 401, 438, 439, 440, 447,
Ackrill, J. L. 81 450
Adam, A. K. M. 423 Augustin, P. 478
Adams, S. A. 40, 55, 98, 250, 398, 399, 400, Auken, S. 437, 448
412, 413, 415 Aune, D. E. 15, 19, 22, 38, 98, 107, 108,
Adolphus, L. 43 113, 114, 117, 183, 436
Aickman, R. 305 Austin, J. L. 88
Aitken, E. 91 Avemarie, F. 298, 308, 309, 310, 311, 312,
Albrecht, M. von 191 313, 314, 317, 332
Aldrete, G. S. 344 Azzaro, P. 44
Aletti, J.-N. 45, 56
Alexander, L. C. A. 34, 37–38, 55, 72, 110, Babbitt, F. C. 317
401, 412 Backhaus, K. 395
Alexander, P. 83 Baden, J. 87
Alexeev, A. A. 35 Bady, G. 478
Alkier, S. 5, 161, 167, 220, 223, 225, 226, Bakhtin, M. M. 11, 21, 77, 437, 440, 441,
230, 236, 340, 483 449, 469
Allberry, C. R. C. 122 Balch, D. L. 38
Allen, G. V. 150 Bale, A. J. 40–41, 55, 78, 80, 400, 415
Allen, T. W. 194 Bammel, E. 277, 284, 285, 287
Allison, D. C., Jr. 14, 235, 273, 289, 296, Bann, S. 93
360, 361, 365, 369, 370 Barchiesi, A. 84
Alter, R. 274 Barr, D. L. 222, 223
Amato, A. 43 Barrett, C. K. 418, 442, 444, 470
Anderson, H. 288 Barthes, R. 92, 93, 433, 434
Anderson, P. N. 3, 30, 31, 366, 405, 417, Barton, S. C. 110
419, 420, 421, 422, 423, 424, 439, 441, Basseler, M. 111
442, 443, 444, 445, 446, 448, 449, 451, Batstone, W. W. 81
452, 453, 456, 457, 458, 459, 460, 461, Bauckham, R. 15, 21, 27, 29, 30, 33, 34,
462, 465, 467, 468 35, 36, 43, 46, 55, 67, 78, 424, 443, 444,
Ankersmit, F. R. 93 449, 450, 453, 454
Anscombe, G. E. M. 85 Bauks, M. 83
Arcari, L. 471 Baumeister, R. F. 427
Armstrong, A. H. 324 Bazzana, G. 472
Arnal, W. E. 23, 433 Beasley-Murray, G. R. 423, 448
Ash, R. 302 Beavis, M. A. 22, 275, 308
Ashton, J. 31, 32, 33, 443, 444 Beck, M. 299
Assmann, A. 158, 421, 425, 426, 428 Becker, E.-M. 22–25, 105, 107, 112, 201,
Assmann, J. 70, 75, 158, 425, 426, 427, 205–6, 209, 211, 220, 243, 244
428, 430, 432, 436, 474 Becker, J. 237
Attridge, H. W. 19, 32, 90, 98, 111, 142, Beebee, T. O. 80, 81
572 Index of Modern Authors
Bendemann, R. von 382, 384–88, 389, Bosenius, B. 179

395 Bosworth, A. B. 300
Bendoraitis, K. A. 288 Botha, J. E. 91
Bennema, C. 84–85 Botha, P. J. J. 71, 335
Berger, K. 43, 183 Böttrich, C. 161, 396
Berglund, C. J. 3–4, 117, 118, 119, 120, Boulogne, J. 300
136, 137, 138, 139, 140, 141, 142 Bovon, F. 25, 33, 385, 411
Bernier, J. 460, 462, 468 Bowden, J. 445
Best, E. 291–92 Bowersock, G. W. 84
Betz, H. D. 367, 370 Bowie, A. 299, 304
Beutler, J. 467 Boyce, J. 207
Bilezikian, G. G. 19 Braaten, C. E. 212
Billings, D. W. 79 Brant, J.-A. 31, 91
Bird, M. F. 35 Braun, W. 435
Birkinshaw, I. 340 Bremmer, J. N. 122, 342
Birkinshaw, P. 340 Brendsel, D. J. 174–75
Bishop, W. 105–6 Brewer, W. F. 86
Bisscheroux, W. H. 295 Breyer, T. 93
Bitton-Ashkelony, B. 137 Breytenbach, C. 4, 171, 179, 193, 219,
Black, C. C. 5–6, 22, 78, 158, 273, 280, 220–21, 222, 223, 243, 336, 347
282–83, 286–87, 294, 290, 301, 303, Brinker, K. 197
304, 468–69 Broadhead, E. K. 64, 275, 304, 361, 369
Blanc, C. 117, 139, 140, 141, 142 Brodie, T. L. 38, 381, 408, 444
Blanton, T. R., IV 362, 364, 377, 378 Brooke, A. E. 135, 138
Blomberg, C. L. 35, 420 Brooks, P. 94
Blumenberg, H. 433 Brown, G. 92
Bobertz, C. A. 279 Brown, P. 57
Boccaccini, G. 465 Brown, R. E. 275, 287, 292, 294, 296, 325,
Bock, D. 22–23, 250 326, 330, 361, 418, 443, 444, 452, 456,
Bockmuehl, M. 26 458, 470, 473
Boer, R. 81, 90, 107, 118, 444 Broyles, C. C. 161
Bolt, P. G. 274, 319 Bruce, B. C. 86
Bonazzi, M. 414 Bruce, F. F. 37
Bond, H. K. 2, 52–55, 56, 98, 157, 288, Brunt, P. A. 137
289 Bryan, C. 22, 98, 337, 341, 347
Bonelli, G. 187 Bultmann, R. 14, 19, 27, 32, 52, 53, 82, 83,
Bonnell, V. E. 180, 181 282, 349, 397, 418, 422, 423, 444, 448,
Bons, E. 167 449, 451, 459, 461
Bonz, M. P. 78 Burke, P. 427
Boomershine, T. E. 339, 340, 342, 349, Burkett, D. R. 98, 228
350, 352, 353, 354, 355 Burnett, F. W. 423
Booth, W. C. 67, 91 Burnet, R. 348, 349
Borg, M. 85–86 Burridge, R. A. 1, 2, 3, 4, 6, 9–56, 57–58,
Borgen, P. 363, 443, 470 59, 60, 61, 62, 63, 64, 65, 66, 74, 75, 77,
Borgnet, S. C. A. 296 79, 82, 85, 97–112, 113, 114, 115, 116,
Boring, M. E. 243, 280, 287, 308 129, 135, 180, 181, 183, 184, 212, 220,
Borrell, A. 42 308, 311, 316, 317, 321, 322, 359, 362,
Borret, M. 269 365, 378, 397–98, 400, 403, 412, 439,
Index of Modern Authors 573
441, 442, 445–47, 449, 450, 453, 454, Combrink, H. J. B. 222
469, 471 Conley, T. 423
Butler, T. 427 Connerton, P. 426
Butterworth, G. W. 130 Conway, C. M. 32, 423, 431, 432, 440
Butticaz, S. 167, 429, 475 Cook, A. 423
Büttner, G. 236 Coppins, W. 27, 382
Byrskog, S. 42, 69, 72 Corstjens, R. 137
Cosaert, C. P. 130, 131, 132
Cairns, F. 301 Coser, L. A. 425
Callies, M. 108 Coughanowr, E. F. 194
Cameron, R. 433 Coulson, S. 110
Camery-Hoggatt, J. 274 Cox, P. 183, 304
Campbell, D. A. 38 Crawford, B. S. 23
Campenhausen, H. von 78 Creutz, D. 93
Cancik, H. 23, 37, 78, 91–92, 143, 183, Croft, W. 88
403 Crook, Z. A. 421, 427–28
Carey, H. J. 307, 325, 326, 327, 328, 329, Crossan, J. D. 422, 471, 473, 475, 484, 485
330 Crossley, J. G. 98
Carr, D. M. 70, 335 Crouch, J. E. 16, 25, 361
Carroll, J. T. 26 Cruse, D. A. 88
Carson, D. A. 420 Csapo, E. 433
Carstens, P. 154, 425 Culler, J. 99
Carter, W. 14, 29, 33 Culpepper, R. A. 2, 26, 275, 277, 360, 361,
Casey, M. 28 363, 366, 438, 439, 443, 444, 456, 461,
Cassidy, R. J. 452, 468, 470 468
Castelli, E. A. 204 Cuny, D. 478
Catchpole, D. 277 Cupitt, S. 445
Caza, L. 325 Czachesz, I. 90, 122, 123, 124, 335
Certeau, M. de 93, 423
Chance, J. B. 180, 189 Daise, M. A. 157
Chandler, D. 103 Daly, L. W. 187
Chapa, J. 43 Damon, C. 301, 302
Charlesworth, J. H. 372, 419, 444 Danker, F. W. 330
Chilton, B. 250 Darr, J. A. 3, 399, 401, 404, 405, 414
Christophersen, A. 247 Davies, W. D. 14, 360, 361, 365, 369, 370
Chrysanthou, C. S. 299 Dawson, D. 129, 130, 131, 132
Clark, E. A. 94 Deer, D. S. 25
Clark, K. 469 Demoen, K. 299, 300, 302, 303
Clark-Soles, J. 373, 422 Denaux, A. 381, 385, 388
Clarke, A. D. 412 Depew, M. 81, 90, 120, 136
Claussen, C. 247 De Pourcq, M. 300, 303
Clivaz, C. 484 Deppe, D. B. 158
Coakley, J. F. 417 Der Nersessian, S. 205
Coates, J. R. 445 Derrida, J. 11, 77, 398, 424, 438
Cohen, R. 12 Dettwiler, A. 475–76
Cölfen, H. 197 Deubner, L. 191
Colie, R. L. 103 Deutsch, C. M. 364
Collins, J. J. 85, 87, 107 Devitt, A. J. 94, 105–6
Dewey, J. 184, 185, 220, 274, 338, 339 Engberg, J. 298

Dibelius, M. 78, 83, 213 Engberg-Pedersen, T. 201, 205–6, 209, 211
Dicken, F. 405 Enos, R. L. 246
Dickinson, E. 90–91 Epp, E. J. 69
Diehl, J. A. 115–16 Erbse, H. 299
Dihle, A. 181, 183, 197, 199 Eriksen, U. H. 298
Dijk, T. A. van 108 Esler, P. F. 34, 35
Dillon, J. 191 Ess, K. 361
Dinkler, M. B. 3, 61, 62, 83, 341 Esser, D. 183
Dobson, M. 92–93 Estes, D. 33
Dominik, W. 335, 342 Estrada, B. 43, 198
Donahue, J. R. 308 Evans, C. A. 17, 43, 91, 161, 243, 275, 277,
Dorfmann-Lazarev, I. 472 287, 308, 420
Döring, K. 314 Evans, C. F. 381
Dorival, G. 118, 130 Evans, V. 110
Dormeyer, D. 22, 23, 105, 183, 184
Doty, W. G. 220 Fairclough, H. R. 81
Doutreleau, L. 204–5 Fantham, E. 342
Downing, G. 183 Farrell, J. 81, 83, 438
Dragutinović, P. 392 Fauconnier, G. 106, 109–10
Draper, J. A. 335 Feinzimmer, A. 273
Droge, A. J. 299, 309 Feldherr, A. 24
Dronsch, K. 222, 230, 231, 239 Fentress, J. 427
Dubrow, H. 85 Fernández López, J. 342, 345
Duff, D. 77, 111 Ferrari, F. 187
Duff, P. B. 209 Fideler, D. R. 192
Duff, T. E. 300 Finnegan, R. H. 57, 62, 335
Duhm, B. 253 Finnern, S. 336, 337, 341–42
Dunn, J. D. G. 424 Finsterbusch, K. 167
Düring, I. 223 Fishelov, D. 85, 86, 89, 91, 102, 106
Fishwick, D. 319
Eagleton, T. 433 Fitzmyer, J. A. 37, 384, 389, 391, 394, 406
Eco, U. 91, 149, 225, 238 Fleddermann, H. T. 294, 383, 389, 390,
Eddelbüttel, A. 422 391
Eden, K. 120 Flichy, O. 349
Edwards, J. R. 20, 26 Fludernik, M. 93, 94, 103
Edwards, M. J. 298 Focant, C. 22–23
Edwards, R. B. 28–29 Foley, J. M. 57, 71, 335
Egger, W. 196, 337 Fornara, C. W. 84
Ehorn, S. M. 250 Förster, H. 174, 175
Ehrman, B. D. 69 Fortna, R. T. 30, 420, 443, 444, 461, 467
Eisele, W. 383 Foster, P. 390, 476, 477, 482
Elder, N. A. 335 Foucault, M. 95–96
Ellens, J. H. 467 Fowler, A. 10, 11, 12, 13, 77, 78, 85, 99,
Elliott, J. K. 281 100–3, 110, 111, 115, 120, 121
Ellwood, R. 433 Fowler, H. N. 314, 315
Elmer, I. J. 205 Fowler, R. M. 64
Emerson, C. 77, 437, 440, 441 Fox, M. 335
France, R. T. 17, 20, 292 Granfield, P. 480
Francis, J. A. 303 Grant, M. 84
Franklin, R. W. 91 Grappe, C. 42
Frauenlob, T. 393 Grau, S. 311, 312, 320, 323, 324, 332
Fredriksen, P. 418 Grech, P. 43
Frey, J. 171, 247, 451, 480, 481, 484 Green, D. A. 432
Frickenschmidt, D. 17, 22, 77, 85, 98, 181, Green, D. E. 370
183–84, 197, 198, 199, 220 Green, J. B. 388
Friis, M. 41 Green, M. 110
Frings, J. R. 43 Greeven, H. 78
Frow, J. 11–12, 13, 77, 81, 85, 86, 106, 108 Greig, J. C. G. 128
Frye, N. 11, 435, 436 Grethlein, J. 93, 94
Fuhrmann, M. 221, 224, 233, 234, 241 Grice, H. P. 88
Fülöp, E. 83 Grobel, K. 82
Funk, R. W. 418 Grünstäudl, W. 6, 167, 389, 392, 393
Guelich, R. A. 17, 198, 366
Gaiman, N. 12–13, 115 Guijarro Oporto, S. 42, 349
Gamble, H. Y. 326 Gundry, R. H. 212, 308, 328
Gamel, B. K. 312, 313, 333 Gunkel, H. 406, 408
García Martínez, F. 363, 373 Gupta, N. K. 288
Garland, D. E. 14 Gurd, S. A. 68
Garland, R. 309, 314 Gurtner, D. M. 18
Garrison, R. 307, 310, 311, 314, 315, 325 Guthrie, K. S. 191, 192, 193
Gaventa, B. R. 304 Güttgemanns, E. 220
Geertz, C. 424 Gymnich, M. 80, 109
Geiger, J. 183
Gelardini, G. 23 Haag, H. 153
Genette, G. 11, 182, 186, 189, 191, 192, Habicht, C. 247, 248
196, 274 Hadas, M. 97
Genz, R. 171 Hadot, I. 118
George, A. 409 Haehling, R. von 184
George, M. 191 Haenchen, E. 444
Gergen, K. 170 Häfner, G. 395
Gerhardsson, B. 367, 368, 371, 372 Hagen, J. M. 451
Gese, H. 325 Hägerland, T. 383, 391
Geyer, D. W. 274 Hägg, T. 98, 102, 179, 180–81, 183, 187,
Gibbs, R. W., Jr. 110 194, 196, 197, 198, 199, 297, 300, 317,
Gibson, R. K. 301, 302 439
Gignac, A. 341, 344 Hagner, D. A. 26, 371
Gill, C. 84 Hahn, F. 220, 242
Ginzberg, L. 290 Haines-Eitzen, K. 57, 69
Gnilka, J. 275 Hakola, R. 85
Goethe, J. W. von 11 Halbwachs, M. 154, 156, 158, 169, 424,
Goltz, T. D. 23 425, 427
Goodacre, M. 295, 340, 383 Hall, J. 335, 342, 344, 345, 346, 347
Goodenough, E. R. 443 Hallett, W. 109
Grady, J. 110 Halliday, M. A. K. 105
Graf, F. 342, 345, 346 Halliwell, S. 246
Hamerton-Kelly, R. 367 Holladay, C. R. 364

Harari, J. V. 95 Holmén, T. 471
Harmon, A. M. 190, 323, 324 Holmes, M. W. 155, 210
Harper, K. 57 Holquist, M. 77, 437, 440, 441, 469
Harrington, D. J. 308 Holzberg, N. 187, 188
Harrington, H. K. 370 Home, H. 115
Harrison, S. J. 81 Hooker, M. D. 275, 277, 293
Hartenstein, J. 240 Hoover, R. W. 418
Hartmann, D. 157 Hope, V. M. 274, 309, 316, 317, 320, 329,
Hartner, M. 103, 105, 109, 110, 111 331
Hartvigsen, K. M. 346, 348, 350, 354, 355 Horrell, D. G. 35
Hasan, R. 105 Horowitz, W. 83
Hasselbalch, T. B. 154, 425 Howard, R. 92
Hastings, S. 427, 467 Hubbard, M. E. 81, 83
Hatina, T. R. 5, 148, 149, 154, 155, 170, Huebenthal, S. 5, 61, 62, 67, 70, 75–76,
429, 474 146, 154, 155, 157, 158, 166, 167, 170,
Hauge, M. R. 23 174, 425, 428, 429, 474
Hays, C. M. 383 Hunt, S. A. 31
Hays, R. B. 161, 230, 327, 333
Hearon, H. E. 335, 336, 339 Iersel, B. M. F. van 220, 295, 341
Hedrick, C. 180 Ilberg, J. 185
Heidegger, M. 151 Incigneri, B. J. 21, 209
Heil, C. 383 Instone-Brewer, D. 461, 467
Heilig, C. 27, 382 Iser, W. 91, 149
Heine, R. E. 118 Iverson, K. R. 329, 331, 335, 339, 348
Held, H.-G. 225
Hellholm, D. 294 Jacob, D. 103
Helmer, C. 142 Jacobi, C. 157
Henderson, Jeffrey 297 Jakab, A. 122
Henderson, John 302 Jameson, F. 89
Henderson, T. P. 482 Jamieson, K. M. 105
Hengel, M. 128 Janowski, B. 172
Henten, J. W. van 298, 299, 308, 309, 310, Jay, P. 153
311, 312, 313, 314, 317, 332 Jeremias, J. 278
Herman, D. 82, 89, 106 Jervis, L. A. 207
Hernitscheck, E. 136 Johnson, B. A. 484
Herrmann, K. 155 Johnson, B. D. 420
Herzer, J. 161 Johnson, E. S., Jr. 331
Heseltine, M. 319 Jones, C. P. 313, 314, 323
Hicks, R. D. 312 Jong, I. J. F. de 299, 304
Hirsch, E. D., Jr. 58, 99, 119–20 Jongkind, D. 210
Hoare, R. W. N. 423, 448 Joubert, S. 452
Hobsbawm, E. 427 Juel, D. H. 338–39
Hock, R. F. 180, 189 Jülicher, A. 223
Hodge, H. G. 264 Jungmann, J. A. 480
Hofrichter, P. L. 459 Junod, E. 122, 123, 124, 125, 126, 127, 128
Hogeterp, A. 388 Just, F. 30, 31, 417, 420, 421, 422, 423, 424,
Holcomb, C. 341 439, 446, 462
Kaestli, J.-D. 122, 123, 124, 125, 126, 127, Kraus, T .J. 90, 473, 475, 477, 478, 481–82,
128 483, 484
Kahl, W. 229 Kraus, W. 169–70, 171, 175
Kähler, M. 212 Kremer, J. 394
Kammen, M. 427 Kreuzer, S. 171
Karakolis, C. 35, 474 Kruger, M. J. 475
Karweick, S. 236 Kuecker, A. 411
Käsemann, E. 422, 470 Kurek-Chomycz, D. A. 474
Kechagia, E. 303 Kysar, R. 417, 421
Kee, H. C. 97
Keener, C. S. 9, 15, 16, 28, 31, 33, 39–40, Lachmann, K. 179
41, 50–52, 53, 54, 55, 56, 98, 420, 421, Lagrange, M.-J. 418
436–37 Lakoff, G. 86, 87, 88, 103, 106, 109
Keith, C. 150, 157, 336, 426, 428 Lalleman, P. J. 122, 123, 124
Kelber, W. H. 3, 68, 69, 72, 75, 150, 151, Lampe, P. 337–38, 343, 347
201, 215, 296, 338, 422, 428 Lane, W. L. 308
Keller, W. R. 108 Lange, A. 83
Kent, T. 82 Larsen, K. B. 32, 33, 111, 432, 436, 437,
Keylock, L. R. 22 438, 447, 448
Kilburn, K. 145 Larsen, M. D. C. 67–68, 70, 71, 72, 73, 74,
King, K. L. 136 75, 105, 145, 152, 201, 204–5, 212, 213
Kirk, Alan 75, 151, 424 Lategan, B. C. 422
Kirk, Alexander N. 426 Laufen, R. 390
Kirkpatrick, P. G. 23 Laughery, G. J. 78
Kittel, G. 349 Laurence, S. 88
Klauck, H.-J. 122 Lavers, A. 433
Klein, H. 394 Lear, J. M., Jr. 381, 382, 384, 395
Klein, U. 191 Le Boulluec, A. 118, 130, 131
Kline, M. G. 407 Le Donne, A. 150, 427
Klink, E. W., III 29–30, 34–36, 55, 98, 446 Lee, D. H. 26
Kloppenborg, J. S. 155, 181, 182, 381, 408 Lee, K. 364
Koch, D.-A. 159, 170, 171 Lee, M. 339
Kodalle, K.-M. 92 Lefkowitz, M. R. 183, 194
Koester, C. R. 420 Le Goff, J. 425
Koester, H. 16, 25, 361, 473 Leigh, M. 347
Kok, J. 383 Lemche, N. P. 154, 425
Kok, M. J. 150 Lenfant, D. 137
Kollmann, B. 170 Leo, F. 19, 182, 183
Konradt, M. 160, 360, 361, 370 Leppin, H. 167
Konstan, D. 300 Lerner, B. D. 325
Koschorke, A. 476–77 Levy, D. 435
Koschorke, K. 141 Lewalski, B. K. 103
Koselleck, R. 434, 435 Lewin, J. E. 182, 274
Köstenberger, A. J. 115 Lewis, C. S. 20
Kostopoulos, Z. L. 41, 55, 77, 79, 83, 398, Licona, M. R. 48–49, 50, 53, 54, 56, 98,
399, 406 114, 116
Kovacs, D. 185 Lieber, L. S. 432
Kraus, C. S. 84, 95, 117 Lieu, J. 402
Lightfoot, J. B. 451 Maritz, P. 29

Lincoln, A. T. 27–28, 29, 30, 33, 47–48, 54, Markham, I. 9, 10, 46, 50, 54, 55
56, 421, 439 Markschies, C. 172, 173
Lincoln, B. 433, 435 Marsh, J. 82, 282
Lindars, B. 444 Marshall, B. 340
Ling, M. 78 Marshall, I. H. 37, 406
Ling, T. J. M. 29 Martin, J. R. 447
Linss, W. C. 16 Martyn, J. L. 441, 448–49, 452, 460, 461,
Litwa, M. D. 83 462, 463, 466, 468, 470
Lloyd, B. B. 106 Marxsen, W. 207, 227, 243, 244
Lohöfer, A. 108 Mason, S. 404
Loisy, A. 418 Massaux, É. 140
Lombardi, F. 44 Matera, F. J. 284, 382, 395
Longenecker, B. 247 Matson, D. L. 392
Longman, T., III 90 Matson, M. 34
Lord, A. B. 70, 151 Maxwell, K. 339
Lounsbury, R. C. 300 Mays, J. L. 325
Lowenthal, D. 427, 434, 435 McCutcheon, R. T. 433
Lucas, D. W. 223, 246 McGee, V. W. 77, 437
Luciani, D. 348, 349 McGing, B. C. 129
Lührmann, D. 183 McGowan, A. 69
Luke, T. 301 McKane, B. R. 293
Lundhaug, H. 471 McKinney, K. 78
Lurje, M. 191 McKnight, S. 17–18
Luz, U. 16–17, 25, 33, 35, 361, 370 McMahon, E. 273
McNeil, B. 122
MacDonald, D. R. 38, 78, 85 Meeks, W. A. 359, 363, 453
Mack, B. L. 433 Meier, J. P. 43, 418
Mackay, I. D. 443 Meiser, M. 171
Madvig, D. H. 243, 276 Mell, U. 223
Maier-Eichhorn, U. 342, 343, 344, 345 Menken, M. J. J. 161, 168, 171, 172, 174
Mainville, O. 406, 410 Merenlahti, P. 85
Malbon, E. S. 64, 273, 274, 293, 339–40, Merkel, H. 283
405 Metzger, B. M. 480
Mandler, J. M. 86 Meyer, P. M. 45
Manicardi, E. 43, 198 Michie, D. 184, 185, 220
Manoukian, S. S. 205 Miles, G. 85–86
Mansfeld, J. 118 Miller, C. R. 89, 105, 437
Manson, W. 393 Miller, J. J. 305
Mara, M. G. 480 Miller, M. P. 23, 433
Marchant, E. C. 297 Miller, P. D. 304
Marcovich, M. 130 Mink, L. O. 94
Marcus, J. 18–19, 20, 25, 205, 226, 243, Mirto, M. S. 309
244, 275, 281, 289, 294, 295, 320, 323, Miscall, P. 274
326, 329, 393, 478, 479, 481 Mitchell, C. 81
Margolis, E. 88 Mitchell, M. M. 4, 34, 35, 55, 201, 207,
Marguerat, D. 37, 78 209, 211, 213, 216, 217
Marincola, J. 24, 117, 120 Mitchell, S. A. 70, 151
Mitchell, W. J. T. 94 Nielsen, C. 148
Mittleman, A. L. 371 Nielsen, H. S. 84
Moessner, D. P. 4, 62–63, 78, 95, 96, 179, Nielsen, J. T. 41, 381
247, 248, 382, 386, 393, 408 Nineham, D. E. 292–93, 382
Moloney, F. J. 276, 294, 419, 420, 443 Noël, F. 385, 387, 388
Momigliano, A. 183 Nolland, J. 17, 18, 384
Mondésert, C. 130, 132, 133, 134 Nora, P. 425
Montanaro, A. 151, 152 Norelli, E. 167, 429, 475
Montgomery, W. 445 Norton, J. D. H. 250
Moore, S. D. 63, 442 Novakovic, L. 363–64
Moore-Rinvolucri, M. 423 Nünlist, R. 299, 304
Morgan, J. R. 181 Nünning, A. 80, 109, 111
Mosley, A. W. 84
Mosser, C. 444 Oakley, T. 110
Mossman, J. 129, 498 Obbink, D. 81, 90, 120, 136
Most, G. W. 120, 121, 135, 314, 315, 317, O’Brien, K. S. 297, 325, 326, 327, 328
324 O’Connor, M. J. P. 273
Moule, C. F. D. 277, 285 O’Day, G. R. 31, 444
Moxnes, H. 294 Olick, J. K. 426, 435
Moyise, S. 161, 168, 172, 174 Olivi, T. 222
Mroczek, E. 68 Omerzu, H. 383, 473
Müller, M. 41, 201, 205–6, 209, 211, 381, Ong, H. T. 444
383 Ong, W. J. 67, 70
Müller, W. 187 Osborn, E. F. 129, 130, 131, 132
Musurillo, H. 299 Osborne, A. M. 309
Myers, A. D. 31 Ostrom, H. 105–6
Overman, J. A. 361, 378
Nagy, G. 70, 151
Najman, H. 81, 87 Paez, D. 427
Nässelqvist, D. 346 Pagels, E. H. 135, 138, 139, 141–42
Nauck, A. 191 Painter, J. 30, 421, 423, 424
Neirynck, F. 16, 140, 275, 444 Palau, B. 42
Nelson, V. 305 Pao, D. W. 408
Neumann, B. 80, 109 Pappert, S. 197
Neuschäfer, B. 118, 136 Park, Y.-M. 22
Neve, L. R. 407, 408, 409 Parker, D. C. 69
Neville, D. J. 392 Parodi, G. 108
Newman, C. 9 Parsenios, G. C. 32–33, 78, 273
Newsom, C. A. 90, 106–7, 117–18 Parsons, M. C. 27, 33, 38, 364, 405
Neyrey, J. H. 42, 45 Pasolini, P. P. 204
Nicak, M. 429 Paton, W. R. 247, 248
Nickel, R. 186 Paulsen, H. 219
Nickelsburg, G. W. E. 298, 299 Pearson, B. A. 216
Nicklas, T. 5, 90, 136, 156, 167, 198, 383, Pede, E. di 349
392, 471, 472, 473, 474, 475, 477, 478, Peirce, C. S. 226
479, 481–82, 484, 485 Pelikan, J. 82
Nicola, F. de 42 Pelling, C. B. R. 48, 439
Niebuhr, K.-W. 361, 474 Pendas, D. 93
Pennebaker, J. W. 427 Ratzinger, J. (Benedict XVI) 42–45, 46,

Penner, J. 81 56–57
Penner, K. M. 81 Ravens, D. A. S. 382, 385
Pennington, J. T. 46–47, 54, 56 Reich, K. A. 26
Perkins, J. 180, 189 Reid, R. S. 247
Perrin, N. 278, 296 Reinbold, W. 366
Perry, B. E. 187, 188, 313 Reinfandt, C. 93
Person, R. F., Jr. 336 Reinhartz, A. 35
Pervo, R. I. 36, 37, 38, 401 Renan, E. 53, 183
Pesch, R. 295–96 Repschinski, B. 361, 364, 378
Petersen, A. K. 33, 298 Reumann, J. H. 325
Petersen, N. R. 65–66, 185, 214, 220 Reverdin, O. 312
Petersen, S. 240 Reynolds, B. E. 31–32
Peterson, D. 406 Rhoads, D. M. 85, 184, 185, 220, 337, 339,
Petöfi, J. S. 221–22, 223 340
Pfeiffer, M. 186 Richards, K. H. 69
Phelan, J. 84, 89 Richardson, D. M. B. 402
Phillips, T. E. 24, 38, 77, 398 Richardson, P. 207
Pieterson, L. K. 24 Riches, J. K. 423, 446, 448
Pikaza, X. 22 Ricoeur, P. 462
Pinault, J. R. 185 Rimé, B. 427
Pitre, B. 278 Rindge, M. S. 330
Pitta, A. 43 Robertson, D. 131
Pitts, A. W. 23, 115, 446 Robbins, J. 426
Places, É. des 191 Robbins, V. K. 87, 325, 341
Placher, W. C. 292 Robinson, J. A. T. 417
Plassart, A. 130, 132, 133, 134 Robinson, J. M. 243, 244
Plümacher, E. 78 Rodenbiker, K. G. 392
Poethke, G. 187 Rodríguez, R. 168–69, 423, 426
Poplutz, U. 475–76 Rogalsky, S. 474
Porter, C. 81 Rolfe, J. C. 309–10, 318, 319, 320
Porter, S. E. 43, 115, 243, 444, 471 Rollins, W. G. 467
Power, T. 301, 302 Roodenburg, H. 342
Praet, D. 299 Rosch, E. 86, 106
Pratchett, T. 12 Rose, D. 447
Pratt, M. L. 88 Roskam, G. 300, 303
Priest, G. 83 Roskam, H. N. 21
Prokofiev, S. 273 Rosmarin, A. 437
Puig i Tàrrech, A. 42, 43, 198 Roth, D. T. 383, 472
Pyrhönen, H. 82 Rothschild, C. K. 124
Rouse, W. H. D. 319
Rabinowitz, P. J. 400 Rousseau, A. 204–5
Radin, P. 290 Rousseau, P. 98
Radl, W. 25–26 Rowland, C. 31, 32
Rajak, T. 297–98 Rudhardt, J. 312
Ranger, T. 427 Ruge-Jones, P. 336, 339, 340
Ranke, L. von 83–84, 446 Rüggemeier, J. 336, 337
Rasimus, T. 124, 136, 450–51 Ruini, C. 43, 44
Rumelhart, D. E. 86 Senior, D. 276
Runesson, A. 22, 107, 361, 370, 374, 375, Shakespeare, W. 301, 307
376, 377, 378 Shauf, S. 406, 407
Rüpke, J. 402 Shepherd, T. 284, 295, 297, 304
Rusch, G. 106 Sheridan, R. 111, 115, 432
Rüsen, J. 92 Sherman, C. L. 249
Russell, D. A. 1, 439 Shiner, W. T. 189–99, 297, 340, 345, 350,
Rutherford, I. 304 351, 352, 354, 355
Ryken, L. 90 Shively, E. E. 3, 87, 106, 338, 349
Shuler, P. L. 17, 77, 97–98, 183, 359
Saldarini, A. J. 316 Sigismund, M. 171
Sanders, E. P. 368, 370 Sim, D. C. 34, 35, 205, 361, 378
Sandrolini, G. 187 Simoens, Y. 43
Sandt, H. van de 479 Sinding, M. 87, 103, 105, 106, 108, 109,
Saramago, José 349 110, 111
Scafuro, A. C. 248 Skoven, A. V. 205
Schacter, D. L. 427 Sluiter, I. 136
Schadewaldt, W. 194 Smith, D. L. 41, 55, 77, 79, 83, 398, 399,
Schaefer, C. 383 406
Schaffer, E. S. 93 Smith, D. M. 420, 443
Scheidel, W. 84 Smith, J. M. 2, 35, 36, 55, 85, 98, 114, 116,
Schenk, W. 183 121, 327, 446, 448
Schiffner, K. 381 Smith, J. Z. 79, 80
Schleiermacher, F. 385 Smith, M. 97
Schmidt, K. L. 386, 446 Smyth, K. 43
Schmidt, K. M. 22, 53 Soards, M. 296
Schmidt, T. E. 285 Söding, T. 42, 43
Schnackenburg, R. 418, 458 Spencer, F. S. 24, 37, 370
Schneider, R. 103, 105, 109, 110 Spiro, R. J. 86
Schneiders, S. M. 443 Spivak, G. C. 94
Schnelle, U. 29 Spolarich, S. 406
Schorn, S. 185, 414 Spooren, W. 108
Schröter, J. 124, 157, 171, 392, 422, 426, Stadter, P. A. 300
472, 480 Stählin, O. 130
Schryer, C. 88 Staley, J. L. 444
Schudson, M. 427 Stalker, D. M. G. 255
Schwanecke, C. 111 Standaert, B. 340–41
Schwartz, B. 425, 426, 428, 430 Standhartinger, A. 240
Schwartz, E. 442 Stanley, C. D. 137
Schweitzer, A. 445 Stanton, G. N. 14, 15, 17, 18, 33, 97, 98,
Schweizer, E. 243, 276, 279, 284, 293, 370 183, 362, 363, 378
Scroggs, R. 367 Stassen, G. H. 368
Searle, J. 88 Steen, G. J. 108, 110
Segal, R. A. 432–33 Steidle, W. 183
Sehgal, P. 273 Stein, R. H. 21, 308
Seim, T. K. 294 Steinbrink, B. 343
Seleznev, M. 361 Steins, G. 166
Selle, R. 17 Stepp, P. 413, 414
Sterling, G. E. 26, 37, 38, 78, 329 Thompson, T. W. 124, 125

Stern, E. R. 336 Thorsteinsson, R. M. 404, 405
Sternberg, M. 274 Tigchelaar, E. 87
Still, T. D. 451 Tissol, G. 81
Stock B. 423 Tkacz, C. B. 312
Stockwell, P. 103 Todd, O. J. 297
Stoneman, R. 181 Todorov, T. 11, 81, 90, 109, 437
Story, C. I. K. 243–44 Toit, A. B. du 222
Strachan, R. 43 Toit, D. S. du 179, 186, 191
Straub, J. 170 Tolbert, M. A. 18, 23, 78, 98, 180
Strecker, C. 225 Tolmie, D. F. 31
Streeter, B. H. 361 Tonger-Erk, L. 341, 342, 343, 345
Strelan, R. 26 Tovey, D. M. H. 424
Strickland, M. 341, 342 Treu, U. 130
Stuart, D. R. 183, 316 Tribe, K. 434
Stuhlmacher, P. 172, 181 Tuckett, C. M. 9, 10, 381
Stukker, N. 108 Turner, C. H. 281
Suggs, M. J. 364, 367 Turner, D. L. 17
Sumpter, P. 166 Turner, M. 406
Svärd, D. 33 Turner, M. B. 106, 109–10
Svenbro, J. 230 Tynanonov, Y. 273
Swain, S. 298
Swales, J. M. 86, 87, 101, 106, 108 Ueding, G. 343
Swanson, R. 339 Ulansey, D. 290–91
Sweat, L. C. 276, 291 Ulrich, E. 69, 152
Syreeni, K. 85 Unnik, W. C. van 78
Szold, H. 290 Urbano, A. P. 413–14
Usher, S. 249–50
Tabor, J. D. 299, 309
Talbert, C. H. 15, 17, 19, 26, 37, 38, 50, 77, Van Belle, G. 29, 340, 451
96, 97, 98, 113, 114, 183, 359, 413, 414 Van Capellen, P. 355
Tamcke, M. 429 Van der Stockt, L. 299, 300
Tannehill, R. C. 242, 392, 395 Van Oyen, G. 4–5, 157, 193, 197–98, 284,
Taschner, J. 166 295, 297, 304, 336, 338, 348, 349, 355,
Tatalović, V. 392 389, 390, 391
Taylor, V. 275, 277 Van Segbroeck, F. 325
Telford, W. R. 22, 209 Verheyden, J. 136, 381, 390, 406, 408, 472,
Temmerman, K. de 299, 300, 302, 303 475, 479
Terrien, S. 304 Versnel, H. S. 312, 320
Thatcher, T. 30, 31, 75, 151, 325, 336, 417, Veyne, P. 423, 439
420, 421, 422, 423, 424, 426, 439, 442, Via, D. O. 78, 223
443, 446, 462 Viehoff, R. 106
Theissen, G. 422 Viljoen, F. 364, 366
Thom, J. C. 179 Vine, C. E. W. 34–36, 98
Thomas, C. M. 25 Vines, M. E. 78, 180, 297, 450
Thomaskutty, J. 32, 449 Vinitzky-Seroussi, V. 435
Thomassen, E. 136, 138, 139, 141, 142 Vinson, R. B. 26
Thompson, M. M. 28, 423 Volkmar, G. 205, 207
Vorgrimler, H. 43 Williams, M. A. 135–36
Vorster, W. 222, 223 Williams, R. 30–31
Votaw, C. W. 19, 53, 183, 451 Williamson, L. 308
Williamson, R., Jr. 107, 115, 120
Wagner, D. 337 Willitts, J. 18
Wagner, J. R. 168 Wills, L. M. 78, 181
Wahlde, U. C. von 444, 457, 461–62 Wilson, R. A. 82
Walbank, F. W. 247, 248 Winn, A. 20, 22
Walker, A. J. 44 Winter, B. W. 412
Walsh, Richard 84, 364 Winterbottom, M. 1
Walsh, Robyn 300 Wire, A. C. 73, 346
Walton, S. 9, 10, 14, 24, 26, 27, 50, 97, 114, Wischmeyer, O. 205
116, 308 Wiseman, T. P. 84
Warmington, E. H. 319 Wissing, P. 439
Warren, A. 88, 89 Witherington, B., III 15–16, 20–21, 33, 37,
Wassen, C. 81 361, 364, 451
Wasserman, T. 158, 210 Wittgenstein, L. 58, 85, 101, 102
Watson, F. 472 Wöhrle, G. 342
Watson, W. G. E. 363 Wolter, M. 27, 360, 382, 385, 386, 387,
Watt, J. G. van der 29, 359, 360, 378, 451 388, 392, 394, 396
Webb, G. R. 21 Woolf, B. L. 83, 213
Weber, M. 424 Woyke, J. 170
Weeden, T. J. 34 Wrede, W. 32, 187, 196, 242
Weidemann, H.-U. 383, 476 Wright, B. G., III 81, 85, 86, 107
Weiß, J. 182–83, 187 Wright, E. T. 9, 50–51, 98
Weisse, C. H. 179, 390 Wucherpfennig, A. 118, 136, 139, 142
Wellek, R. 88, 89
Weren, W. 479 Yarbro Collins, A. 18–20, 25, 33, 37, 79,
Werner, M. 205, 207 85, 98, 114, 212, 243, 244, 275, 287, 292,
West, G. 31 293, 294, 308, 311, 314, 325, 331, 367
West, M. L. 316 Young, D. M. 341, 342
Westerholm, S. 367 Young, F. M. 136, 207
Westermann, C. 255 Yule, G. 92
White, H. 423
Whitenton, M. R. 356 Zadorojnyi, A. V. 321, 322
Wick, P. 337 Zahn, M. M. 107
Wickham, C. 427 Zahn, T. 122
Wilk, F. 120, 161, 168, 171 Zelizer, B. 426
Willert, N. 298 Zerubavel, Y. 427
Williams, C. H. 31, 32, 174 Ziemann, B. 93
Williams, J. F. 274 Zimmermann, R. 31, 451, 452
Williams, L. 13
Subject Index
Aaron 362 Alexander the Great 15–16, 24, 47, 184,

Abdera 185 185, 297, 302, 308, 326
Abel 285 Alexandria 122, 127, 129, 130, 182, 456
Abraham 130, 132, 211, 237, 238, 364, Allegory 131, 139, 207
430, 431 Allusion, see s. v. intertextuality
Abstinence 192, 309 Almsgiving 366, 375
Abuse 255, 263, 268, 283, 284, 285, 286, Amazement, wonder 228, 241, 261, 286,
351 302, 326, 405, 465
– mockery 209, 213, 263, 268, 275, 283, Anaxarchus of Abdera 303, 312, 313, 324
284, 285, 289, 291, 296, 328, 330, 351, Ancestry, ancestor 47, 102, 114, 186,
353, 377, 478 187, 198, 251, 288, 403, see also s. v.
– ridicule 240, 241, 242, 268, 288, 289, genealogy
311, 319, 351 Anecdote 54, 114, 302, 422
Achilles 384, 387, 426 Angel 219, 237, 238, 239, 250, 252, 293,
Achilles Tatius 84 296, 373, 375, 403, 409, 411, 479, 483,
Acts 484
– apocryphal 122, 123 Anger, see s. v. wrath
– A. of Andrew 122 Animal, beast 86, 88, 132, 192, 258, 265,
– A. of John 4, 113, 117, 121, 122–29, 323
143 – ape 324
– A. of Paul 122 – bear 192
– A. of Peter 122, 478 – bird 88, 103–4, 301
– A. of Thomas 122 – calf 258, 259
– A. of Titus 156 – chicken 104
– canonical 2, 3, 10, 24, 27, 36–42, 51, 55, – colt 275
58, 65, 79, 124, 166, 169, 171, 184, 204, – dog 86, 108, 303
381, 385, 386, 395, 397–416 – dove 411
– trial protocols, acta 299, 310 – eagle 47, 104, 188, 192
– see also Index of Passages, s. v. – fish 278, 375
Adam 211, 258 – fisherman 195, 215
Adultery 371 – fox 324
Aesop 187–89, 196, 297 – goat 375
Affliction, distress 125, 193, 231, 267, 280, – scapegoat 255
290, 319, 322, 324, 479, see also s. v. – horse 301
suffering – lion 47
Agesilaus 183, 317 – louse 301, 311
Agricola 24, 38, 41, 183, 322, 323 – octopus 303
Ahab 404 – ox 47, 192
Ahiqar 312 – parrot 104
Alabaster 275 – reptile 258
Alexander of Abonoteichos 323–24 – rooster 283, 307, 315, 317
586 Subject Index
– serpent 127, 258 – σύνταξις 247, 250, 269

– sheep 252, 279, 374, 375, 466, 467, 468, – τάξις 1, 118, 145, 247, 248, 249
470 Arrian 72, 313, 324, see also Index of Pas-
– sheepfold 466, 467, 468 sages, s. v.
– shepherd 252, 279, 466, 467, 468 Artemis 126, 127
– swallow 193 Ascension 133, 188, 251, 259, 264, 319,
Annal 24, 38 323, 370, 409
Anointing 133, 158, 159, 166, 239, 244, Asclepius 305, 315, 317
256, 257, 259, 264, 265, 267, 268, 270, Asia Minor 122, 187, 204, 411, 454, 456,
275, 303, 393, 409, 410 460, 468
Anonymity 45, 275–76, 312, 480 Assassination 298, 301, 302, 317, 319, 320,
Anthropology 86, 238, 347, 371 321
Antichrist 457 Assyria 311
Antioch 361 Athena 111, 190
Antonius Pius 172 Athens 129, 185, 190, 195, 314, 318, 323,
Apocalypse, apocalyptic 19, 31, 32, 33, 97, 405
104, 105, 107, 109, 228, 238, 240, 257, Atonement 255, 259, 263, 266, 298, 369,
258, 265, 280, 373, 377, 378, 430, 484 379
Apollo 189, 192 Atticus 183, 186, 309, 329
Apollodorus of Athens 277 Audience 2, 5, 10, 11, 13, 15, 21, 24, 26,
Apollonius of Tyana 47, 183, 184, 191, 29–31, 34–36, 41, 54, 55, 66, 67, 82, 87,
302, 313–14, 323, 324, 451, see also 88, 91, 95, 108, 109, 110, 111, 115, 116,
Index of Passages, s. v. Philostratus 128, 154, 158, 172, 173, 192, 245, 246,
Apollos 456 247, 248, 249, 250, 288, 290, 292, 326,
Apologetics 21, 40, 49, 117, 173, 174, 175, 327, 328, 330, 333, 335, 356, 397, 399,
176, 320, 401, 402, 414, 415, 439, 444, 401, 402, 406, 409, 413, 414, 415, 452,
448, 465, 469 453, 454, 455, 456, 458, 459, 460, 464,
– apologetic historiography 26, 78 465, 466, 469, 470, 474, 477, 481, 485
Apomnēmoneuma 72, 73, 75, 76, 117 Augustus (Octavian) 47, 291, 301, 309,
Aporia 442, 444 310, 319, 324, 329, 332
Apostle 39, 122, 124, 125, 126, 129, 149, Authenticity 83, 210, 216, 338, 351, 410,
171, 201, 204, 207, 215, 259, 361, 402, 418, 426, 438, 455, 456, 457, 466, 468
410, 420, 456, 458, 472 – authentication 215, 402, 408, 410
– see also s. v. calling, disciple, mission – γνήσιος 118
Arabian 191 – νόθος 118
Aramaic 264, 287, 325, 353, 355 Authorship 17, 60, 68, 71, 72, 74, 122, 458
Archimedes 384, 387 – author 6, 11, 13, 17, 20, 26, 36, 37, 38,
Areopagus 405 41, 49, 54, 58, 59, 60, 62, 63, 66, 68, 71,
Aretalogy 21 72, 73, 75, 77, 78, 82, 88, 89, 91, 92, 95,
Aristotle 11, 81, 82, 120, 186, 220–23, 224, 96, 97, 99, 100, 111, 112, 113, 115, 116,
246, 249, 302, 312, 313, 438, 439, see 118, 120, 121, 123, 126, 128, 129, 131,
also Index of Passages, s. v. 132, 136, 137, 142, 143, 147, 148, 149,
Arrangement 64, 73, 83, 100, 118, 145, 150, 151, 152, 153, 154, 155, 157, 159,
152, 179, 183, 188, 190, 191, 219, 220, 160, 170, 171, 172, 173, 189, 193, 201,
221, 223, 224, 247, 249, 257, 269, 270, 202, 204, 205, 207, 212, 213, 214, 217,
304, 341, 342, 387, 395, 401, 414, 421, 246, 248, 250, 253, 259, 269, 271, 283,
448, 480 299, 304, 317, 325, 338, 339, 392, 395,
– οἰκονομία 247, 248, 249, 269 398, 399, 400, 401, 405, 406, 408, 412,
Subject Index 587
413, 414, 415, 416, 417, 422, 429, 436, Bethany 236, 239, 275, 276, 448
437, 446, 447, 451, 454, 472, 473, 474, Bethsaida 374
475, 476, 477, 478, 481, 483 Betrayal 127, 128, 204, 212, 213, 230, 268,
– authorial intent 16, 20, 35, 38, 58, 60, 278, 279, 319, 329
72, 76, 88, 91, 94, 97, 100, 108, 116, 118, Bias 51, 150, 174, 175
132, 137, 175, 188, 222, 247, 248, 249, Bible 31, 151, 155, 160, 295, 339, 340, 349
250, 270, 279–80, 290, 291, 292, 329, – Gutenberg B. 153
330, 337, 373, 383, 399, 401, 402, 415, – “rewritten B.” 41, 107
420, 421, 436, 437, 451, 454, 458, 470 – see also s. v. Hebrew Bible, New Tes-
– see also s. v. composition tament, scripture
Authority 58, 60, 61, 62, 66, 67, 69, 71, 74, Biography, bios 2, 3, 4, 9–56, 58, 59, 60,
122, 124, 127, 173, 181, 189, 194, 198, 63, 65, 75, 76, 77, 79, 87, 96, 97, 98, 99,
205, 209, 215, 217, 228, 229, 259, 260, 100, 101, 102, 103, 104, 105, 106, 107,
267, 286, 287, 298, 309, 311, 315, 316, 109, 110, 111, 112, 113, 114, 129, 135,
361, 362, 364, 365, 366, 368, 369, 378, 143, 173, 179, 180, 181, 182–99, 200,
393, 402, 403, 407, 408, 414, 429, 456, 212, 220, 299–303, 304, 307–33, 359,
457, 460, 462, 463, 465, 468 360, 363, 397–416, 417, 418, 436, 438,
– authorizing 71, 89, 95, 96, 259, 295, 439, 440, 442, 445–50, 451, 454, 455,
364, 367, 404, 405, 407, 409, 411, 412, 462, 469
433, 455, 457, 464–65 – βίος 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 15, 16, 17, 18, 23, 36,
Avarice 192, 320, 405 37, 41, 97, 100, 101, 113, 114, 116, 129,
143, 183, 185, 191, 212, 297, 300
Babylon, Chaldea 109, 187, 191 Biology 11, 102, 223
Baptism 4, 179, 189, 194, 199, 207, 213, – evolution, see s. v.
215, 216, 217, 226, 243, 244, 245, 257, – family, see s. v.
261, 290, 409, 410, 455, 456, 458, see – genetics 182
also s. v. purity, washing – species 11, 82, 97, 300
Barabbas 275, 287–88 Birth 16, 24, 44, 48, 55, 90, 110, 129, 138,
Beating 255, 264, 268, 283, 312, 321, 330, 150, 179, 181, 186, 187, 191, 194, 198,
374 220, 273, 323, 364, 378, 406, 407, 409,
Beatitude 370, 371, 375, see also s. v. 412, 450, 456, 463, 465
blessing Blasphemy, slander 227, 231, 240, 265,
Beauty 145, 304, 482 274, 283, 284, 371, 376, 455, 457
Bede 401 Blessing, benediction 254, 264, 266, 268,
Beginning 4, 39, 47, 114, 123, 155, 158, 277, 278, 279, 283, 291, 315, 370, 373,
179, 184, 186, 193, 198, 199, 201, 210, 375, 376
225–26, 243–71, 275, 299, 301, 346, Blindness 158, 194, 236, 283, 374, 448,
383, 385, 386, 387, 388, 389, 392, 395, 449, 460, 462, 463, 464, 465, 466, 467,
401, 402, 409, 431, 447, 448, 465 468, 469, 470
– ἀρχή 4, 199, 201, 207, 210, 211, 215, Blood 62, 70, 90, 215, 232, 239, 258, 279,
225, 243, 245, 246, 247, 248, 249, 250, 280, 281, 282, 374, 376, 377, 407, 439,
259, 262, 265, 268, 269, 270, 401 450, 458, 470, 480
– origin 10, 16, 54, 91, 92, 99, 104, 111, Body 4, 131, 141, 142, 192, 207, 208, 209,
125, 131, 139, 172, 174, 183, 187, 198, 213, 239, 264, 269, 293, 298, 300, 312,
199, 244, 248, 336, 398, 406, 407, 413, 315, 318, 337, 341, 343, 344, 345, 431,
414, 416, 420, 429, 441, 442, 446, 447, 474
448, 449, 460, 463, 470, 472, 473 – beard 202, 255
Benefaction 124, 276, 322 – blood, see s. v.
588 Subject Index
– bowel(s) 309, 318, 319, 322 – βιβλίον 262

– cheek 268, 344, 368 – βίβλος 204, 205
– ear 158, 193, 205, 209, 230, 242, 244, – circulation 73, 96, 204, 413, 443, 448,
267, 274, 312, 342, 345, 346, 391, see 449, 454, 458, 459
also s. v. hearing – codex 130, 471, 473
– eye 104, 158, 207, 209, 230, 242, 264, – edition 448, 453, 454, 457, 458
273, 288, 300, 329, 343, 344, 346, 440, – ἐκδιδόναι 205
463, 464, 465, 469, 485, see also s. v. – manuscript, see s. v.
sight – print, see s. v.
– eyebrow 344 – publication 34, 68, 71, 72, 152, 204, 209
– eyelid 344 – scroll 25, 32, 38, 146, 171, 201, 207
– face 47, 245, 255, 259, 268, 300, 304, – title 38, 58, 73, 110, 117, 118, 122, 157,
342, 370, 394 158, 173, 244, 302
– flesh, see s. v. Bravery 313, 318, 319, 322, 323, 329, 330,
– foot 124, 192, 251, 319, 345, 422 332
– hand 69, 71, 73, 127, 128, 188, 229, Brevity 71, 114, 123, 185, 186, 189, 190,
232, 234, 235, 254, 263, 264, 294, 311, 191, 192, 195, 265, 317, 321, 323, 401,
312, 313, 314, 315, 316, 319, 321, 322, 407, 413, 475
323, 331, 344, 362, 370, 371, 373, 376, – shorthand, abbreviation 187, 201, 211,
393, 410, 467, 485 212, 214, 216, 394
– hair 205, 319 – see also s. v. synecdoche
– head 13, 111, 185, 192, 202, 205, 264, Bribery 127, 276
275, 286, 347 Brutus 48, 318, 319, 322, 342
– heart, see s. v. Burial 19o, 211, 232, 273, 274, 292, 323,
– heel 384, 387, 426 331, 352, 456, 476, 477, see also s. v.
– leg 86, 324, 476, 481 tomb
– mouth 84, 131, 133, 134, 209, 234, 254, Bush 134, 237
321, 362, 371
– neck 344 Cain 258
– nose 202, 312, 344 Caligula 301, 320, 321
– posture 342 (Ps.-)Callisthenes 184
– sexual organs 192 Canon 29, 47, 57, 62, 155, 156, 173, 175,
– shoulder 345, 374 257, 341, 342, 348, 360, 430, 471, 472,
– skull 244 473, 485
– σῶμα 145, 208, 209, 279 Capernaum 139, 142, 194, 195, 216, 228,
– σωματικός 131 229, 260, 361, 374, 448, 459
– tears, see s. v. weeping Cassius Dio 274, see also Index of Pas-
– tongue 158, 303, 313 sages, s. v.
– womb 254 Category, class, see s. v. taxonomy
– see also s. v. corpse Cato Minor 48, 183, 321–22, 325, 329,
Boldness, free speech 125, 190, 233, 405, 330, 331, 343
406, 470 Catholic epistles
– παρρησία 126, 233, 405 – James 429
Book 17, 26, 37, 68, 70, 72, 74, 75, 92, 114, – 1–3 John 166, 444, 447, 450, 452, 453,
118, 143, 146, 152, 154, 155, 157, 159, 454, 457, 460, 461, 469, 470
160, 161, 166, 176, 199, 204, 205, 207, – Jude 166
212, 213, 225, 237, 243, 244, 248, 251, – 1 Peter 166, 171, 172
252, 302, 336, 349, 420 – 2 Peter 166
Subject Index 589
– see also Index of Passages, s. v. – Messiah 4, 18, 32, 87, 139, 153, 169,
Cause, causality 65, 75, 93, 94, 95, 118, 196, 209, 210, 217, 225, 226, 227,
175, 217, 246, 249, 250, 251, 276, 301, 228, 229, 232, 233, 234, 240, 243,
309, 312, 313, 338, 368, 425, 436 245, 246, 256, 257, 269, 276, 281,
– αἰτία 118 284, 291, 294, 305, 351, 352, 353,
– “c. and effect” 149, 247, 248, 256, 270 360, 363, 364, 367, 378, 381, 431,
Certainty 401, 403, 406, 410, 414, 416, 435 443, 444, 448, 455, 467, 468
– ἀσφάλεια 401 – Son of David 158, 236, 263,
Chiasm 18, 301, 386 363–64
Childhood, child 47, 87, 114, 127, 132, – Son of God 158, 159, 166, 183, 185,
140, 179, 194, 195, 220, 235, 251, 264, 194, 196, 198, 199, 201, 209, 211,
268, 279, 280, 281, 318, 322, 331, 351, 224, 225, 226, 227, 231, 232, 234,
373, 376, 431, 433, 450, 474 239, 245, 246, 257, 258, 259, 260,
– boy 192, 377, 404, 434 261, 263, 264, 265, 266, 268, 269,
– girl 128 271, 281, 283, 287, 291, 302, 303,
Chios 195 331, 332, 351, 364, 403, 409, 431,
Chorazin 374 443, 478, 479, 480
Chreia 71, 189, 190, 199, 398 – Son of Man 189, 198, 214, 228, 233,
Christianity, Christian 1, 2, 4, 10, 16, 24, 236, 239, 240, 261, 262, 263, 264,
34, 35, 39, 40, 41, 54, 70, 78, 82, 87, 266, 267, 281, 283, 284, 286, 288,
96, 98, 108, 112, 113, 116, 117, 119, 289, 292, 294, 303, 304, 375, 377, 465
122, 127, 128, 129, 130, 132, 133, 134, – Word, logos 43, 46, 130, 131, 132,
135, 136, 137, 138, 139, 140, 142, 143, 133, 134, 139, 431, 432, 440, 456
144, 146, 148, 149, 153, 154, 156, 157, Christophany, see s. v. epiphany
159, 160, 161, 166, 167, 170, 171, 172, Chrysippus 303
173, 174, 175, 176, 184, 201, 217, 223, Chronology 49, 52, 61, 83, 94, 100, 171,
250, 257, 295, 299, 303, 309, 310, 316, 183, 186, 187, 191, 192, 195, 244, 299,
327, 339, 340, 351, 360, 361, 362, 366, 420, 440, 445, 448, 459, 461
381, 383, 401, 402, 404, 405, 406, 407, – diachronic 102, 148, 149, 155, 219, 248,
411, 412, 414, 415, 416, 429, 438, 440, 390, 406, 428, 444, 448, 453, 461
452, 453, 454, 456, 457, 458, 468, 471, – synchronic 61, 149, 155, 219, 248, 336,
472 339, 390, 453
Christology 20, 26, 43, 44, 45, 46, 63, Church 1, 15, 17, 34, 37, 38, 39, 82, 89,
65, 112, 135, 153, 158, 169, 175, 244, 172, 204, 217, 243, 269, 288, 355, 361,
362–65, 378, 394, 402, 403, 409, 417, 395, 403, 404, 409, 410, 411, 429, 443,
447, 476 448, 452, 453, 454, 456, 458, 461, 468
– titles 226 – ecclesiology 217, 403, 409
– Christ 4, 44, 53, 125, 126, 127, 128, Cicero 24, 47, 49, 72, 274, 320, 342, 343,
131, 133, 142, 159, 160, 168, 169, see also Index of Passages, s. v.
171, 173, 198, 199, 201, 204, 207, Cimon 186
208, 209, 210, 211, 212, 213, 215, Circumcision 360, 410, 466
216, 217, 219, 224, 225, 243, 244, City, town 115, 124, 125, 130, 185, 192,
245, 259, 261, 264, 268, 269, 271, 194, 195, 276, 277, 285, 288, 292, 300,
278, 279, 283, 286, 287, 291, 294, 312, 318, 387
304, 410, 436, 438, 443, 444, 459, 468 – hometown 393
– Emmanuel 365 – village 276, 455
– Holy One 228, 265 Claudius 319, 320
– Lord, see s. v. Cleanthes 303
590 Subject Index
Clement of Alexandria 4, 35, 74, 113, 117, 418, 429, 431, 454, 458, 475, 476, 478,
121, 129–35, 141, 142, 143 480, 481–84
Cleomenes 355 – σύγκρισις 300, 398, 404
Cloth, clothing 126, 127, 190, 286, 345, Compassion 125, 134, 279, 280, 287, 367,
374, 376, 377, 434, 482, 483 374, 375, see also s. v. mercy
– linen 293, 476 Competence 65, 82, 110, 136, 197, 245,
– robe 241, 268, 293, 375, 434, 482 249, 327, 393, 399, 415
– shoes 345 Competition 74, 78, 123, 413–14
– toga 345 Composition, writing 4, 12–13, 16, 19,
– tunic 290, 293, 345 21, 24, 34, 36, 38, 41, 48, 49, 52, 59,
Cloud 239, 240, 261, 264, 320, 408 60, 70, 71, 72, 73, 81, 83, 84, 85, 93,
Cognition 3, 86, 87, 90, 92, 103, 105, 106, 101, 107, 112, 113, 115, 116, 117, 118,
107, 112, 115, 350, 354, 355, 467 119, 121, 122, 123, 124, 130, 135, 137,
– Idealized Cognitive Model (ICM) 87, 138, 143, 144, 145, 157, 159, 160, 173,
103, 104, 440 179, 180, 185, 188, 189, 191, 193, 195,
– see also s. v. mind, thought, understand- 198, 201, 202, 204, 209, 211, 212, 219,
ing 244, 246, 247, 248, 253, 256, 260, 262,
Command(ment) 125, 190, 196, 216, 245, 268, 271, 286, 300, 304, 308, 312, 313,
251, 252, 263, 267, 277, 301, 303, 365, 323, 324, 335, 343, 347, 348, 353, 361,
367, 368, 370, 371, 374, 375, 376, 410, 397, 398, 401, 402, 412, 416, 420, 431,
443, 462, 467, 476, 480 437, 438, 439, 443, 446, 450, 453, 454,
– Decalogue 365 460, 471, 472, 473, 474, 475, 478, 483,
Commission, sending 6, 124, 125, 128, 484
175, 199, 215, 244, 245, 246, 250, 251, – c. criticism 273
254, 257, 258, 259, 260, 263, 267, 270, – writer 12–13, 40, 67, 73, 77, 82, 83, 84,
323, 374, 383, 392, 393, 394, 443, 455, 85, 89, 91, 93, 94, 106, 118, 121, 129,
462, 463, 477, 482, see also s. v. apostle, 136, 145, 246, 247, 271, 304, 330, 332,
mission 342, 348, 382, 430, 440, 446, 450
Communication 3, 32, 58, 59, 60, 62, 63, – see also s. v. scribe
66, 67, 68, 69, 70, 71, 72, 75, 78, 80, Concept 15, 24, 28, 41, 58, 59, 60, 62, 66,
88–96, 108, 109, 119, 134, 156, 207, 68, 71, 73, 74, 75, 80, 81, 85, 86, 87, 88,
217, 246, 253, 269, 335, 336, 337, 338, 89, 91, 92, 96, 101, 105, 106, 109–10,
340, 343, 345, 346, 347, 348, 354, 356, 111, 112, 115, 116, 117, 118, 119, 120,
360, 401, 411, 437 121, 131, 135, 136, 148, 149, 150, 151,
Community 4, 10, 14, 17, 29, 34, 35, 36, 153, 155, 156, 157, 158, 167, 207, 211,
55, 88, 90, 98, 108, 112, 121, 149, 160, 226, 248, 250, 252, 258, 261, 296, 314,
166, 197, 199, 207, 210, 327, 328, 352, 315, 327, 378, 381, 384, 385, 387, 392,
354, 360, 361, 362, 363, 374, 378, 399, 424, 430, 432, 435, 439, 479
402, 412, 418, 432, 434, 436, 439, 444, Confession 127, 233, 255, 256, 264, 269,
446, 447, 449, 452, 453, 454, 456, 457, 291, 331, 344, 439, 447–50, 452, 457,
458, 461, 466, 468, 474 468, 478, 479, 480, 481
Comparison 2, 3, 4, 13, 19, 32, 36, 45, Conspiracy, plot 24, 25, 228, 236, 375
49, 50, 58, 78, 79, 90, 82, 86, 99, 100, Content(s) 5, 10, 13, 27, 38, 58, 63, 66,
102, 103, 104, 108, 109, 113, 114, 115, 82, 84, 99, 100, 104, 108, 114, 115, 116,
116, 117, 118, 126, 135, 143, 152, 173, 120, 123, 125, 180, 182, 184, 185, 186,
179–200, 211, 212, 248, 269, 270, 280, 194, 197, 243, 339, 343, 417, 422, 423,
297, 300, 320, 321, 323, 324, 326, 362, 432, 436, 457, 458, see also s. v. subject
372, 378, 386, 390, 399, 402, 404, 412, matter
Subject Index 591
Context Cross 141, 209, 211, 212, 213, 217, 221,
– literary, rhetorical 37, 82, 96, 99, 105, 224, 226, 231, 233, 235, 239, 240, 244,
110, 117, 119, 130, 133, 148, 149, 154, 261, 263, 264, 265, 267, 268, 288, 290,
155, 156, 161, 168, 171, 175, 176, 190, 291, 307, 311, 320, 325, 326, 327, 328,
194, 209, 219, 221, 223, 229, 236, 253, 330, 331, 332, 353, 439, 458, 478
262, 263, 281, 284, 288, 290, 293, 307, – crucifixion 93, 195, 207, 208, 209, 210,
308, 309, 324, 326, 327, 328, 329, 331, 211, 213, 214, 215, 224, 231, 234, 238,
333, 362, 367, 369, 370, 371, 394, 422, 239, 240, 241, 270, 271, 275, 281, 285,
424, 425, 429, 448, 457, 463, 477 286, 287, 288, 289, 290, 291, 292, 294,
– social, etc., see s. v. setting 295, 296, 298, 302, 303, 304, 314, 320,
Continuity 6, 90, 94, 243, 245, 247, 248, 323, 332, 351, 353, 386, 421, 456, 476,
249, 250, 295, 381–96, 408, 410, 411, 478, 480, 482
418, 420, 421, 423–32, 436, 440 – patibulum 288
– τὸ συνεχές 247, 248, 249, 250 Croton 192, 193
Contract 13, 37, 89, 99, 106, 115, 116, 118, Crowd 127, 232, 234, 260, 261, 262, 268,
297, 320, see also s. v. covenant 281, 282, 285, 286, 287, 324, 364, 457,
Convention, norm 25, 26, 28, 46, 49, 59, 459, 460, 469, 476
60, 61, 62, 66, 73, 80, 81, 82, 85, 88, 90, Crown 192, 268, 373
91, 116, 119, 121, 204, 223, 270, 311, – coronation 264
368, 398, 401, 404, 412, 414, 427, 438, Cult, see s. v. worship
440, 441 Culture 11, 57, 59, 60, 62, 68, 69, 70, 71,
– rule(s) 12, 59, 80, 81, 82, 87, 88, 91, 72, 75, 76, 82, 84, 88, 90, 92, 95, 96, 105,
119, 121, 152, 181, 291, 346, 350, 360, 118, 121, 139, 145, 150, 153, 154, 155,
363, 367, 368, 369, 372, 384, 390, 412 156, 157, 159, 160, 166, 168, 169, 172,
– see also s. v. custom 173, 182, 185, 197, 201, 217, 246, 257,
Conversion 125, 126, 127, 128, 129, 130, 271, 308, 311, 316, 332, 335, 336, 348,
140, 362, 374 352, 354, 355, 356, 360, 399, 407, 408,
Corinth 279 415, 416, 424, 425, 430, 431, 434, 435
Corpse 126, 127, 128, 291, 292, 293, 323, – cultural memory, see s. v. memory
476, 477, see also s. v. body – history of c. 62, 403
Cos 185 – popular c. 12–13
Council 43, 122, 123, 124, 126–27, 283, Cup 193, 275, 278, 279, 280, 289, 376,
292 458, see also s. v. drink
– βουλή 254, 266, 292 Curse 258, 283, 284, 312, 460, 461
– βουλευτής 292 Custom 91, 126, 285, 286, 287, 316, 354,
– counsel, advice 188, 247, 266, 313, 343, 421, 422, 436
344 Cylon 193
Court 264, 266, 282, 283, 286, 291, 312, Cyme 195
335, 345 Cyprian of Carthage 153
Covenant 251, 254, 263, 271, 279, 362, Cyrus 183, 256, 260
373, 377, 379, 407, 408
– διαθήκη 251, 254, 263 Damascus 362
– see also s. v. contract Darkness 157, 240, 269, 280, 355, 372,
Cranach, Lukas 213–14 373, 375, 433
Crete 192 David 158, 161, 236, 262, 266, 277, 288,
Criterion 23, 47, 62, 89, 248, 338, 385, 294, 363, 364, 367, 369, 403, 407, 409,
418, 426, 466 430, 455
Croesus 187, 188 Deafness 158, 234
592 Subject Index
Death 2, 10, 12, 38, 39, 54, 87, 92, 95, Demon 128, 196, 234, 259, 265, 373, 374,
123, 124, 125, 126, 127, 129, 160, 170, 377, 393, 469, see also s. v. devil, spirit
171, 181, 183, 185, 186, 187, 189, 192, Demonax 129, 183, 190, 196, 323, 324,
193, 195, 196, 197, 198, 204, 205, 207, 329, 332
208, 209, 211, 212, 213, 214, 215, 216, Demosthenes 332, 343
217, 221, 224, 229, 231, 232, 233, 234, Desert, wilderness 194, 199, 227, 250, 252,
236, 237, 238, 239, 240, 241, 252, 256, 254, 256, 257, 258, 259, 261, 262, 263,
266, 267, 268, 269, 270, 271, 273, 275, 265, 279, 292, 404, 407, 431, 455
280, 282, 283, 284, 285, 286, 288, 290, Desire 125, 231, 251, 302, 311, 312, 315,
291, 292, 293, 294, 295, 296, 297, 298, 323, 331, 369, 370, 403
300, 301, 302, 303, 307–33, 350, 353, – lust 374
354, 355, 364, 377, 378, 386, 388, 394, Despair 124, 254, 271, 288, 281, 327, 328
405, 407, 412, 429, 432, 439, 449, 453, – desperation 281, 330
454, 468, 476, 478, 479, see also s. v. Destruction 133, 160, 209, 216, 236,
end 251, 265, 283, 285, 301, 312, 313, 315,
Debt 307, 315, 317, 369 361, 373, 376, 377, 379, 434, 457,
Decapolis 195 461, 467
Deed 17, 20, 36, 39, 40, 41, 128, 129, 192, Devil 373, 431
210, 212, 216, 232, 279, 300, 317, 360, – (the) Satan 109, 204, 227, 233, 258,
362, 365, 366, 374, 375, 377, 378, 410, 260, 261, 265, 292, 364, 394
412, 413 Diadochoi
– act 13, 23, 71, 78, 88, 89, 94, 112, 118, – Ptolemies 247
121, 123, 127, 141, 143, 151, 153, 198, – Seleucids 247, 264, 266, 430
201, 251, 276, 288, 290, 312, 313, 320, Dialogue 3, 21, 32, 78, 88, 173, 185,
322, 324, 335, 349, 350, 368, 411, 421, 186, 188, 189, 193, 195, 348, 392, 399,
427, 428, 432, 449 441–70
– action 3, 5, 40, 89, 89, 103, 106, 108, – Socratic/Platonic d. 32, 297, 450, 451,
182, 186, 188, 189, 190, 193, 195, 196, 454–55
198, 213, 215, 222, 227, 239, 241, 243, Dignity 315, 319, 345
244, 249, 253, 260, 271, 278, 290, 312, Diodorus Siculus 24, 72, 246, 247, 248,
344, 360, 371, 406, 407, 431, 444, see 249, see also Index of Passages, s. v.
also s. v. narrative → action Diogenes Laertius 182, 191, 302–3, 311,
– activity 19, 39, 41, 49, 70, 71, 89, 92, 96, 312, 313, 318, 322, see also Index of
109, 123, 124, 126, 128, 139, 142, 188, Passages, s. v.
199, 217, 282, 285, 314, 392, 411, 430, Diogenes of Sinope 190, 303
431, 433, 439, 446 Dionysius of Halicarnassus 246, 247, 249,
Definition 3, 13, 19, 24, 27, 29, 30, 35, 250, 304, see also Index of Passages, s. v.
48, 58, 60, 62, 66, 71, 72, 74, 75, 77, 79, Discipleship, disciple 14, 36, 39, 47, 51,
81, 86, 87, 88, 91, 93, 96, 99, 102, 106, 54, 113, 124, 126, 127, 128, 129, 142,
115, 116, 118, 119, 120, 131, 135, 146, 143, 193, 194, 195, 196, 204, 205, 215,
180, 184, 186, 188, 191, 199, 211, 213, 222, 224, 226, 227, 229, 230, 231, 232,
220, 222, 224, 248, 258, 269, 292, 298, 233, 234, 235, 236, 237, 238, 239, 242,
308–9, 311, 360, 361, 372, 389–92, 400, 245, 259, 260, 261, 262, 263, 267, 268,
402, 406, 408, 409, 412, 413, 414, 428, 269, 274, 275, 276, 277, 278, 279, 280,
433, 434, 437, 438, 439, 472, 473, 474, 281, 283, 294, 286, 288, 291, 292, 293,
476 294, 298, 323, 324, 328, 365, 366, 369,
Demades 343 370, 373, 374, 376, 377, 383, 386, 388,
Demiurge 138 392, 393, 394, 395, 404, 405, 410, 413,
Subject Index 593
416, 429, 431, 443, 454, 458, 459, 460, Docetism 452, 454, 457, 458, 461
463, 465, 477, 482 Domitian 123, 302, 313, 314, 320, 321,
– Andrew 195, 238 323, 452, 457, 470
– “beloved d.” 429, 454, 458, 459 Door, gate 301, 466, 467, 479, 482, see also
– follow, follower 6, 11, 37, 39, 128, 157, s. v. entry
159, 160, 166, 167, 168, 169, 171, 173, Doppelgänger 276, 281, 282, 286, 287, 294,
174, 190, 194, 204, 209, 256, 263, 267, 297
269, 279, 284, 288, 291, 292, 294, 295, Doublet, see s. v. narrative
360, 361, 362, 365, 366, 367, 368, 369, Drama, play 11, 12, 18, 78, 81, 82, 102,
375, 378, 404, 410, 421, 429, 452, 453, 105, 109, 185, 186, 191, 192, 193, 195,
456, 457, 458, 459, 461, 466, 468, 477 196, 199, 222, 223, 233, 246, 254, 256,
– John 122, 123, 124–29, 198, 204, 215, 261, 269, 270, 288, 340, 345, 395, 407,
238, 280, 289, 361, 393, 405, 410, 456, 408, 409, 410, 435, 438, 439, 440, 441,
458 445, 449, 450, 451, 466, 470, 484
– James 198, 215, 238, 261, 264, 280, 289 – comedy 5, 41, 62, 81, 89, 223, 224, 225,
– Judas Iscariot 213, 239, 267, 276 240, 273, 454
– μαθητής 204, 277, 278, 393, 404 – New Comedy 187
– μαθήτρια 481 – farce 12
– Mary Magdalene 240, 241, 292, 476, – film, see s. v.
481–82, 483 – re-enactment, Neuinszenierung 5,
– Peter 35, 37, 39, 40, 72, 195, 204, 205, 471–85
206, 207, 213, 215, 229, 231, 232, 233, – scene, see s. v. narrative
235, 238, 239, 242, 261, 265, 275, 280, – stage 301, 319, 339, 351, 411, 433, 474
282–84, 286, 288, 291, 292, 293, 294, – television, see s. v. film
361, 362, 377, 404, 405, 410, 429, 458, – theater 125, 324, 345
459 – tragedy 5, 10, 16, 19, 22, 26, 62, 81, 120,
– Seventy(-two) 292, 293, 294, 404, 407, 186, 223, 224, 225, 233, 236, 239, 240,
408 310, 398, 446, 454
– Thomas 457 – tragicomedy 5, 219–42
– Twelve 230, 236, 259, 260, 261, 263, Dream 125, 301, 305, 320, 323, 411, see
267, 268, 276, 278, 281, 291, 292, 293, also s. v. sleep
383, 392, 393, 404, 410, 458 Drink 258, 278, 279, 289, 312, 369, see
– Eleven 261 also s. v. cup
– see also s. v. apostle, teaching Dualism 372, 373, 377, 449
Discourse analysis 66, 92 Dumbness 158, 189
Disobedience 125, 253, 266 Dürer, Albrecht 207–8, 217
Divination 188, 192, 406 Dysphoria 5, 219, 224, 225, 227, 229, 232,
– augury 301 233, 234, 239, 240
– dream, see s. v.
– fortunetelling 102 Earth 39, 141, 142, 188, 215, 239, 251,
– omen, portent 301, 331, 355, 377, 382 252, 254, 255, 258, 259, 263, 267, 293,
– soothsaying 301 323, 365, 374, 375, 376, 411, 412, 428,
– see also s. v. oracle, prophecy, sign 432, 439
Division 83, 104, 118, 187, 247, 310, 335, – earthquake 192, 269, 271
371, 372, 386, 387, 391, 394, 419, 424, Ecclesiology, see s. v. church
429, 430, 438, 444, 461, 464 Education, see s. v. teaching
– διαίρεσις 118, 247 Egypt 122, 127, 191, 323
Divorce 216, 260, 365, 366 Elder 251, 373, 407, 408, 409, 479
594 Subject Index
– Johannine E. 452, 454, 457, 458 Epitome 4, 245

Election, choice 44, 79, 87, 88, 91, 103, Equiprimordiality 151
108, 110, 111, 129, 138, 148, 179, 188, Erythraea 195
189, 194, 195, 196, 210, 214, 246, 249, Eschatology 19, 20, 22, 98, 158, 166,
253, 254, 255, 257, 258, 263, 267, 270, 210, 212, 213, 222, 227, 235, 238, 239,
279, 288, 345, 347, 350, 368, 373, 375, 244, 245, 257, 258, 259, 279, 355, 362,
377, 381, 402, 403, 404, 407, 408, 409, 372–78, 409, 410, 434, 443, 465
411, 412, 422, 426, 429, 430, 435, 439 – “day of the Lord” 251, 252, 410
Eleusinian mysteries 190 – ἔσχατον 142, 213, 410
Emotion, feeling 105, 115, 132, 133, 192, – Gehenna 235, 373
224, 234, 237, 286, 330, 343, 344, 346, – hell, Hades 235, 373, 374
347, 349, 350, 351, 352, 354, 355, 356, – “last days,” “end times,” etc. 245, 252,
361, 371, 393, 405, 435, 484 262, 363, 372, 373, 375, 377, 485
Empathy 170, 484 – realized e. 410, 434
Encomium 17, 59, 101, 129, 297 – transmigration 192
Encyclopedia 224, 228, 238, 355 Essene 363, 371, 404
End 40, 54, 68, 71, 72, 79, 87, 93, 94, 95, Essentialism 61, 85, 96, 425
106, 118, 120, 155, 170, 184, 185, 186, Ethics, morality 2, 3, 4, 31, 46, 54, 107,
190, 193, 197, 198, 213, 225, 238, 239, 110, 130, 138, 192, 207, 210, 217, 307,
245, 247, 249, 252, 254, 259, 262, 263, 322, 359–79, 401, 404, 412, 414, 428,
267, 269, 270, 288, 289, 291, 293, 298, 446
301, 302, 309, 315, 316, 317, 318, 319, – character 182, 300, 301, 304, 315, 316,
320, 321, 323, 324, 326, 327, 329, 331, 345, 412
350, 363, 405, 482, 483 – moral philosophy 59, 313
– teleology 94, 155 – see also s. v. exhortation, vice, virtue
– τέλος, τελεῖν, κτλ. 94, 246, 247, 248, Ethnicity 139, 407, 411, 421, 430, 431
249, 250, 271, 302, 304, 435 – Gentile 4, 95, 126, 137, 148, 154, 158,
– see also s. v. death, eschatology, goal 160, 166, 167, 168, 207, 210, 211, 215,
Enmity, enemy 250, 251, 256, 286, 303, 216, 253, 254, 263, 264, 267, 279, 285,
312, 318, 352, 368, 369, 375 298, 328, 331, 352, 361, 374, 375, 410,
Entry, entrance 185, 245, 250, 264, 277, 411, 453, 454, 456, 457, 466, 468, 469,
282, 288, 296, 304, 331, 354, 374, 392, 470, 480
403, 462, 466, 467, 479 – nation 131, 210, 248, 252, 253, 284,
Ephesus 124, 125, 126, 127, 128, 129, 187, 255, 256, 258, 263, 264, 266, 268, 298,
204, 405, 456 317, 332, 361, 365, 377, 430
Epic, see s. v. poetry Ethnography 24, 38
Epicurus 302, 303 Eucharist 207, 239
Epigraphy 79, 198, 209, 274 – Last Supper 275, 278–79, 321, 329
Epimenides 302 – “thanksgiving meal” 4, 207
Epiphany 209, 210, 213, 214, 215, 217, – see also s. v. meal
238, 265 Eunapius 302, 413
– Christophany 4, 207, 209, 216 Euphoria 5, 219, 224, 225, 227, 229, 232,
Episode, see s. v. narrative 233, 236, 240
Epistle, letter 11, 24, 34, 71, 148, 171, 211, Euripedes 130, 183, 185, 332, see also
398, 429, 460, 468, see also s. v. Catholic Index of Passages, s. v.
epistles, Paul Eusebius 71, 74, 117, 122, 304, 456, see
Epistula apostolorum 472 also Index of Passages, s. v.
Epithet 216 Evagoras 317
Subject Index 595
Eve 258 – brother 128, 204, 237, 258, 288, 289,
Evil, wickedness 124, 125, 251, 258, 259, 298, 313, 374, 376
263, 264, 265, 287, 289, 290, 322, 352, – child, see s. v. childhood
363, 369, 371, 372, 374, 375, 376, 377, – cousin 39
378, 393, 404, 476 – daughter 232, 235, 280, 282, 286, 301,
Evolution 3, 80, 81, 82, 85, 115, 120, 246, 377, 410
338, 348, 411, 443, 449, 454, 455, 460, – “f. resemblance,” see s. v. genre
463, 466, 469 – father 34, 124, 234, 266, 277, 287, 292,
Exaltation 39, 216, 254, 264, 266, 267, 298, 375, 376, 377, 403, see also s. v.
410, 412 God
Exhortation 124, 133, 192, 344, 452, 453, – father-in-law 322
457, see also s. v. ethics – husband 125, 127
Exile 246, 252, 253, 256, 258, 262, 364 – mother 123, 188, 194, 254, 291, 292,
– captivity 68, 254 298, 313, 329, 376, 377
Exodus 255, 256, 258, 259, 261, 262, 271, – mother-in-law 188, 239, 232, 235, 292
388, 404, 407, 408, 430, see also s. v. – parent 108, 129, 185, 251, 362, 453,
Torah 463, 464, 474
Exorcism 234, 263, 393 – sibling 39
Expiation 255 – sister 128, 275, 374, 376
– son 122, 139, 185, 191, 209, 223, 234,
Fable 188, 189, 194, 221 255, 258, 266, 292, 298, 321, 322, 375,
Factuality, fact 31, 32, 37, 83, 84, 85, 127, 430–31, 449, 468, see also s. v. Chris-
139, 140, 142, 241, 295, 304, 344, 352, tology → titles
415, 421, 422, 435, 436 – wife 124, 125, 127, 188, 189, 237, 301,
Faith, belief 4, 44, 52, 87, 116, 117, 125, 309, 319
126, 127, 128, 131, 133, 134, 135, 137, – widow 275
138, 140, 141, 168, 207, 210, 211, 233, Fasting 227, 366, 373, 375
234, 235, 237, 249, 257, 269, 281, 283, Fate 138, 168, 169, 171, 216, 256, 264, 315,
286, 289, 291, 303, 314, 315, 339, 351, 317, 319, 328, 403, 430, 459
352, 354, 360, 374, 376, 377, 378, 401, Fear, terror 5, 224, 228, 229, 232, 235, 236,
410, 412, 424, 431, 433, 435, 438, 439, 241, 242, 244, 245, 250, 260, 261, 269,
441, 444, 449, 450, 452, 453, 455, 457, 274, 280, 288, 298, 302, 312, 344, 371,
459, 463, 465, 466, 468, 482 373, 377, 428, 460, 477, 479, 482, 483,
– conviction 250, 264, 309, 312, 331, 339, 484
371, 411 Fiction 12, 16, 37, 41, 55, 67, 83, 84, 85,
– fidelity, faithfulness 17, 255, 320, 367, 102, 103, 182, 273, 407, 414, 421
368, 374, 376, 434, 458, 465 Fig tree 236
– trust 124, 127, 140, 234, 235, 236, 268, Film, television 11, 12, 13, 115, 204, 273,
281, 287, 377 349
– πιστεύειν 127, 128, 134, 140, 210, 265, – musical 11, 13, 115
482 – police procedural 12
– πίστις 134, 141, 248, 376 – pornography 12–13, 115
Falsehood, deception 81, 84, 85, 102, 117, – romance 12
158, 255, 283, 284, 286, 338, 362, 363, – sci-fi/fantasy 12, 103
370, 371, 373, 374, 397, 433, 457 – sitcom 11
Family, kin 11, 100, 101, 102, 114, 183, – soap opera 11
184, 190, 192, 197, 220, 251, 258, 260, – thriller 11
280, 292, 403, 444, 454, 466, 467 – western 13, 115
596 Subject Index
Fire 134, 142, 192, 251, 260, 283, 302, 343, 181, 184–85, 188, 199, 212, 217, 256,
373, 374, 410, 411 271, 343, 354, 393, 394, 398, 399, 400,
– burning 251, 260, 482 402, 403, 409, 412, 413, 414, 418, 422,
Flattery 344 425, 426, 428, 429, 430, 432, 434, 435,
Flesh 46, 133, 134, 208, 217, 256, 258, 281, 438, 440, 454
365, 410, 432, 440, 450, 458, 470 Freedom, liberty 188, 190, 192, 253, 259,
Flexibility 3, 4, 14, 24, 36, 40, 41, 46, 50, 264, 271, 289, 321, 323, 350, 457, 474,
51, 52, 58, 59, 60, 61, 81, 86, 87, 92, 99, 479, 485
105, 114, 115, 118, 121, 156, 211, 399, – liberation 160, 176, 231, 253, 256, 259,
413 304, 468, 469
Flogging 268, 287, 328 Friendship, friend 44, 192, 195, 260, 297,
Folklore 52, 291, 436, 445 301, 302, 317, 318, 319, 321, 322, 386,
Food, diet 192, 258, 260, 261, 301, 309, 454, 458, 466, 477, 478, 482, 483
360, 410 Fruit 225, 231, 242, 279, 371, 375, 379,
– bread, loaf 127, 230, 232, 239, 261, 275, 412
278, 369, 377, 431, 449 Fulfillment 5, 95, 109, 114, 115, 117, 141,
– eating 192, 193, 258, 278, 279, 282, 146, 147, 156, 168, 169, 170, 171, 175,
313, 369, 373 188, 193, 198, 212, 242, 244, 245, 257,
– feeding 260, 261, 278, 279, 431, 449, 266, 268, 271, 277, 283, 284, 290, 295,
459 330, 354, 363, 364, 365, 366, 367, 369,
– grain 140, 369 372, 375, 377, 401, 402, 431, 435, 455,
– manna 431 457, 465, 472
– meat – πληροῦν 147, 245, 386, 388, 401
– fish, see s. v. animal Function 3, 12, 19, 34, 35, 60, 62, 69, 75,
– pork 313 77, 78, 81, 82, 88, 89, 94, 95, 96, 99, 100,
Forgiveness 228, 252, 257, 287, 320, 369, 104, 105, 106, 107, 108, 111, 116, 121,
372, 375, 376, 377, 378, 464 129, 130, 135, 143, 149, 170, 180, 182,
– pardon 250, 321, 322, 330 184, 185, 190, 197, 219, 226, 231, 233,
Form (literary) 3, 4, 5, 10, 12, 13, 18, 21, 239, 242, 243, 244, 245, 263, 295, 304,
24, 27, 30, 32, 38, 40, 58, 63, 70, 72, 74, 311, 343, 344, 349, 351, 359, 382, 384,
80, 81, 82, 83, 91, 92, 93, 96, 97, 99, 104, 386, 395, 399, 400, 402, 408, 413, 416,
106, 107, 108, 110, 111, 112, 117, 120, 425, 428, 429, 431, 433, 434, 435, 437,
134, 135, 145–76, 180, 184, 185, 189, 439, 440, 442, 444, 446, 452, 454, 458,
191, 197, 204, 207, 209, 216, 217, 246, 471, 472, 474, 475–78
270, 304, 326, 335, 336, 338, 343, 399, Funeral 190, 198, 293, 303, 310, 322, 323,
401, 407, 413, 420, 433, 435, 436, 438, 330, 332
446, 447, 448, 449, 450, 453, 470, 474,
475, 484 Galba 51, 320, 321
– form criticism 5, 14, 20, 21, 32, 33, 44, Galen 72, 401
45, 46, 51, 53, 64, 65, 70, 82, 83, 97, 112, Galilee 128, 139, 194, 195, 213, 215, 217,
155, 161, 183, 397, 407, 418, 436, 441, 226, 227, 236, 242, 243, 269, 270, 281,
445, 446, 447–50 283, 291, 292, 293, 361, 373, 388, 389,
– formalism 12, 64, 270, 397 448, 453, 455, 457, 460, 461, 463, 465,
– see also s. v. genre 467, 468, 477
Fornication 371 – Sea of G., see s. v. sea
Frame 53, 60, 61, 62, 73, 109, 110, 111, Game 9, 85, 101, 102, 121, 149, 173, 295,
119, 145, 149, 153, 154, 155, 156, 336
157–71, 168, 172, 173, 174, 175, 179, Gematria 364
Subject Index 597
Gender 32, 345, 370 250, 259, 270–71, 304, 312, 323, 325,
Genealogy 4, 182, 185, 199, 364 329, 341, 345–46, 347, 359, 367, 382,
Generation 5, 33, 55, 57, 61, 77, 148, 153, 383, 388, 399, 402, 403, 404, 406, 413,
158, 159, 160, 167, 168, 169, 171, 172, 414, 415, 422, 426, 427, 431, 433, 437,
173, 174, 207, 217, 239, 260, 290, 364, 445, 446, see also s. v. end
374, 375, 376, 402, 407, 429, 430, 468, God, goddess 126, 133, 134, 189, 193, 209,
471 301, 304, 311, 312, 315, 316, 317, 319,
Genre passim 323, 324
– canon, see s. v. – divinity, deity 61, 95, 113, 119, 130,
– conceptual-blending theory 87, 131, 132, 133, 134, 135, 138, 143, 188,
109–10, 111, 112 189, 209, 210, 217, 228, 236, 242, 257,
– convention, see s. v. 260, 265, 266, 281, 289, 302, 304, 312,
– criterion, see s. v. 315, 319, 322, 323, 324, 331, 363, 364,
– “family resemblance” 10, 11, 12, 30, 39, 376, 402, 403, 404, 405, 406, 407, 408,
46, 58, 63, 80, 85, 86, 97, 99–104, 114, 409, 411, 412, 431, 433, 436, 439, 441,
115, 116, 118, 119, 120, 183, 184, 197 443, 444, 449, 450, 451, 455, 456, 463,
– frame, see s. v. 464, 465, 467, 470
– function, see s. v. – Father 133, 193, 268, 280, 281, 287,
– genology 62, 81, 393 304, 365, 374, 376, 377, 410, 431, 432,
– mode 3, 10, 11, 12, 19, 20, 21, 24, 26, 443, 449, 455, 456, 467
28, 32, 33, 38, 41, 56, 58, 61, 62, 78, 80, – abba 268, 280, 281, 287
81, 88, 90, 92, 93, 95, 96, 104, 105, 109, – God (of Israel) 15, 43, 87, 94, 109, 111,
118, 189, 193, 195, 196, 199, 200, 269, 114, 124, 125, 126, 127, 128, 130, 131,
441, 449, 454–59, 462–69, 470 132, 133, 134, 135, 139, 158, 159, 166,
– (neo-)classical 14, 59, 81, 82, 99, 101, 170, 174, 175, 183, 185, 189, 194, 196,
107 198, 199, 201, 210, 211, 214, 215, 216,
– sui generis 2, 16, 20, 23, 24, 27, 82, 98, 222, 224, 225, 226, 227, 228, 229, 230,
112, 397 231, 232, 233, 234, 235, 236, 237, 238,
– taxonomy, see s. v. 239, 240, 242, 243, 244, 245, 246, 251,
– see also s. v. form 252, 253, 254, 255, 256, 257, 258, 259,
Gentile, see s. v. ethnicity 260, 261, 263, 264, 265, 266, 268, 269,
Geography 24, 38, 139, 197, 215, 385, 399, 270, 271, 274, 276, 279, 281, 283, 284,
420, 445, 448 290, 291, 293, 294, 297, 298, 301, 302,
Gesture 90, 337, 342, 343, 344, 345, 346, 303, 304, 307, 314, 325, 331, 332, 351,
347, 349, 350, 352, 355, 356 352, 353, 355, 362, 364, 365, 368, 370,
Gethsemane 240, 275, 280–81, 286, 298, 371, 372, 373, 376, 377, 378, 382, 401,
329 405, 406, 407, 408, 409, 410, 411, 412,
Gideon 407, 408 416, 430, 431, 438, 439, 441, 443, 450,
Glory 121, 129, 210, 239, 250, 254, 264, 455, 456, 457, 463, 464, 465, 467, 469,
266, 289, 311, 365, 373, 375, 424, 464, 470, 478, 479, 480
469 – Lord, see s. v.
Glossolalia 410 – Most High 264, 265, 266, 403
Gnosis, gnosticism 65, 235, 457, 458, see Golgotha 275, 289, 304, 476
also s. v. knowledge Gomorrah 376
Goal, purpose 14, 21, 40, 47, 50, 52, 54, Gospel passim
63, 79, 87, 90, 94, 100, 108, 109, 111, – apocryphal G. 35, 36, 440, 471, 472,
114, 115, 125–29, 143, 148, 152, 153, 473, 480, 484
154, 170, 174, 213, 244, 246, 247, 248, – “Cross G.” 473
598 Subject Index
– G. of Peter 2, 5, 471–85 210, 211, 212, 213, 214, 215, 216, 217,
– G. of Thomas 83 219, 243, 244, 245, 257, 265
– Infancy G. of Thomas 472 – evangelist 4, 5, 29, 47, 49, 93, 114, 134,
– Protevangelium of James 473 160, 201, 202, 204, 205, 207, 210, 213,
– Unknown G. (P.Egerton 2) 472, 475, 215, 217, 276, 277, 280, 281, 282, 287,
481, 485 288, 292, 293, 294, 295, 299, 301, 303,
– canonical G. passim 316, 417, 420, 421, 422, 430, 431, 434,
– G. of John 2, 3, 4, 5, 27–33, 34, 35, 436, 437, 439, 440, 442, 444, 446, 447,
38, 41, 51, 55, 74, 86, 94, 111, 113, 448, 449, 450, 452, 453, 454, 456, 458,
116, 117, 119, 121, 124, 129, 135, 459, 460, 461, 467, 470
136, 138, 139, 140, 141, 142, 151, – “good news” 5, 47, 109, 111, 168, 199,
157, 166, 168, 169, 170, 171, 174, 219, 220, 224, 227, 242, 243, 244, 252,
175, 180, 183, 184, 191, 204, 205, 262, 265, 266, 271, 302
281, 282, 284, 291, 360, 372, 373, – infancy narratives 45, 47, 179, 364,
417–40, 441–70, 475, 476, 477, 403, 404
483 – Q 107, 383, 390, 391
– G. of Luke 2, 3, 6, 24, 25–27, 33, 37, – “signs G.” 222, 225, 424
38, 39, 40, 41, 45, 47, 51, 55, 69, 74, – synoptic G. 1, 28, 43, 47, 51, 69, 100, 117,
78, 79, 85, 86, 166, 169, 170, 171, 128, 157, 180, 183, 184, 228, 258, 298,
179, 180, 184, 194, 200, 202, 204, 382, 389, 390, 391, 418, 419, 420, 429,
205, 211, 212, 213, 214, 252, 281, 430, 432, 436, 437, 440, 443, 444, 446,
282, 284, 287, 288, 291, 293, 296, 448, 450, 451, 454, 458, 459, 460, 461,
299, 328, 329, 330, 381–96, 397–416, 464, 467, 469, 475, 478, 480, 481, 482
439, 445, 451, 472, 477, 478 – s. problem 43, 383, 391
– G. of Mark 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 17, 18–25, – see also Index of Passages, s. v.
27, 28, 33, 35, 45, 52–55, 65, 66, 70, Grace 138, 468
71, 72, 73, 74, 75, 76, 78, 85, 86, 87, Greece 37, 81, 130, 195, 202, 205
92, 97, 106, 107, 109, 110, 111, 148, – Greco-Roman 3, 14, 15, 22, 23, 26, 28,
152, 153, 154, 157, 158–59, 160, 166, 30, 31, 32, 35, 43, 46, 47, 48, 53, 58, 59,
168, 170, 171, 179–200, 201–17, 65, 68, 76, 77, 78, 87, 97, 98, 99, 100,
219–42, 243–71, 273–305, 307–33, 101, 102, 103, 104, 105, 106, 107, 109,
335–56, 367, 368, 382, 383, 390, 391, 110, 111, 112, 114, 121, 136, 180, 181,
393, 394, 405, 420, 421, 439, 443, 182, 183, 184, 189, 197, 198, 199, 307,
444, 445, 447, 448, 450, 451, 453, 308, 309, 310, 311, 313, 316, 317, 318,
454, 458, 459, 464, 469, 479, 480, 321, 322, 324, 325, 326, 327, 328, 329,
481, 483, 484 330, 331, 332, 333, 355, 378, 399, 400,
– G. of Matthew 2, 3, 14–18, 20, 22, 401, 404, 405, 406, 412, 414, 415, 416,
25, 27, 33, 34, 35, 36, 45, 47, 55, 69, 430, 438
73, 74, 86, 107, 116, 118, 122, 126, – Greek, Hellen(ist)ic 2, 16, 17, 22, 23,
129, 133, 136, 140, 160, 166, 168, 46, 53, 69, 78, 79, 84, 95, 97, 105, 109,
169, 170, 171, 179, 180, 184, 194, 114, 118, 130, 132, 133, 134, 135, 151,
200, 204, 205, 212, 281, 282, 284, 180, 194, 199, 201, 202, 205, 209, 210,
288, 289, 293, 296, 328, 259–79, 382, 241, 246, 248, 250, 267, 269, 270, 271,
383, 389, 390, 391, 439, 445, 448, 284, 285, 297, 299, 300, 302, 308, 309,
451, 454, 459, 479, 480, 481, 482 310, 313, 314, 317, 340, 352, 353, 359,
– εὐαγγελίζεσθαι 204, 252, 394 387, 400, 403, 404, 405, 406, 410, 412,
– εὐαγγέλιον 3, 4, 17, 18, 114, 116, 119, 413, 415, 438, 439, 442, 445, 447, 450,
157, 198, 199, 201, 204, 205, 207, 208, 462, 469, 477, 481
Subject Index 599
Greed, see s. v. avarice – Theodotion 265
Grief, mourning 125, 193, 273, 280, – Masoretic Text 69, 172, 245, 254, 325,
320, 329, 344 484, see also s. v. lament, 328,
weeping – Old Testament pseudepigrapha
Gutenberg, Johannes 71, 150, 153, see also – Ascension of Moses 252
s. v. print – Assumption of Moses 252
– 4 Ezra 72
Hadrian 313 – Genesis Apocryphon 271
Harvest 140, 254 – Jubilees 271
Haustafel 171 – Sibylline Oracles 130
Healing 124, 125, 126, 128, 129, 158, 174, – Testament of Moses 252, 271
194, 229, 234, 236, 315, 365, 373, 376, – Prophets, see s. v. prophecy
373, 374, 376, 393, 401, 448, 449, 455, – Torah, see s. v.
465, 467, 468, 469, 475, 481 – Writings
Health 189, 318, 401 – Daniel 297, 485
Hearing 64, 66, 67, 95, 96, 104, 124, 125, – Esther 312
126, 131, 134, 197, 209, 210, 229, 230, – Ezra 228
231, 234, 242, 247, 248, 255, 261, 263, – Psalms, see s. v.
264, 268, 270, 278, 279, 283, 286, 289, – see also Index of Passages, s. v.
290, 304, 314, 318, 326, 327, 328, 339, Heracleon 4, 113, 117, 118, 121, 135–42,
343, 351, 352, 353, 354, 355, 364, 410, 143
443, 448, 450, 453, 463, 465, 466, 469, Heracles 302
470, 474, 481, 484 Heraclitus 456
Heart 134, 193, 209, 230, 260, 261, 340, Heresy 123
366, 370, 371, 372, 456 – heresiology 137, 138, 139, 141
– hardness of h. 230, 245, 261, 279, 365 Hermeneutics 23, 25, 34, 35, 44, 47, 54,
Heaven 141, 142, 220, 224, 226, 229, 231, 60, 63, 65, 66, 67, 76, 115, 116, 119, 149,
233, 234, 237, 239, 240, 241, 242, 252, 150, 154, 156, 166, 170, 207, 212, 213,
257, 261, 263, 264, 266, 267, 270, 290, 217, 243, 245, 337, 359, 363, 365, 367,
291, 293, 301, 320, 323, 365, 372, 374, 370, 372, 378, 417, 418, 419, 421, 422,
375, 378, 379, 411, 432, 439, 455, 479 423, 424, 430, 431, 434, 437, 438, 440
Hebrew 73, 105, 109, 110, 191, 204, 252, Hero 16, 37, 229, 310, 312, 317, 433, 435,
325, 364, 365, 371, 404 445, 446
Hebrew Bible, Old Testament 45, 69, 77, Herod Antipas 195, 232, 259, 260, 261,
91, 135, 138, 143, 147, 148, 149, 151, 294, 404, 405, 477, 478
152, 154, 157, 171, 172, 175, 244, 250, Herodian(s) 228, 260, 263
251, 252, 295, 296, 308, 325, 381, 392, (Ps.-)Herodotus 84, 94, 138, 194–96, 316,
430 see also Index of Passages, s. v.
– Apocrypha Hippocrates 136, 185–87, 196
– Ben Sira 359 History 2, 3, 5, 9, 10, 11, 15, 17, 18, 19, 20,
– Susannah 312 21, 22, 23, 24, 25, 26, 28, 29, 30, 31, 36,
– Wisdom of Solomon 313 37, 40, 41, 42, 43, 44, 46, 48, 49, 50, 51,
– Greek versions 52, 53, 54, 55, 56, 59, 60, 61, 62, 64, 65,
– Septuagint (LXX) 168, 172, 210, 67–74, 75, 76, 78, 81, 82, 83, 84, 88, 91,
212, 226, 244, 245, 250, 251, 254, 93, 94, 95, 96, 97, 98, 99, 102, 103, 104,
256, 257, 258, 260, 263, 264, 265, 105, 107, 109, 110, 114, 117, 121, 122,
266, 267, 285, 289, 308, 325, 326, 123, 135, 138, 139, 140, 141, 142, 145,
328, 255, 386, 399, 404, 407, 409 146, 149, 150, 151, 153, 155, 175, 182,
600 Subject Index
183, 197, 200, 201, 205, 211, 212, 215, 450, 451, 454, 455, 458, 459, 464, 467,
235, 244, 246, 247, 248, 249, 252, 257, 469, 470
271, 287, 294, 296, 299, 300, 303, 304, Humility 134, 376
307, 313, 317, 322, 328, 331, 338, 339, – humiliation 255, 264, 268, 285, 293,
341, 353, 389, 397–416, 417, 418, 419, 373
420, 421, 422, 423, 424, 425, 426, 427, Hypocrisy 260, 366, 374, 405
428, 429, 430, 431, 432, 433, 435, 436, Hypomnēma 4, 74, 113, 117, 121, 135–42,
438, 439, 440, 442, 443, 445, 446, 447, 143, 145, 152, 204, 212
448, 449, 450, 451, 453, 458, 460, 461,
462, 470, 471, 472, 480, 485 Iamblichus 183, 184, 191
– historical criticism 5, 83, 97, 112, 147, Identity 3, 5, 54, 58, 65, 74, 75, 89, 90, 112,
148, 149, 150, 152, 155, 176, 220, 270, 139, 149, 153, 154, 156, 158, 159, 160,
337, 338, 418, 423, 434 169, 170, 172, 173, 174, 175, 176, 196,
– historiography 3, 4, 10, 16, 22, 23–25, 224, 232, 235, 241, 250, 252, 256, 264,
26, 29, 30, 36, 37, 38, 39, 41, 51, 55, 59, 269, 284, 291, 302, 354, 360, 363, 364,
78, 94, 95, 112, 113, 114, 117, 121, 135, 400, 402, 403, 407, 411, 413, 414, 415,
142, 143, 173, 184, 247, 398, 399, 400, 416, 417, 418, 420, 421, 422, 423, 427,
401, 403, 405, 406, 408, 412, 413, 415, 429, 430, 432, 433, 434, 435, 436, 440,
416, 419, 436, 438, 446, 447, 450, 451 450, 456, 458, 463
– ἱστορία 15, 26, 95, 114, 117, 136, 246, Ideology 5, 66, 94, 95, 111, 240, 363, 418,
248, 300 419, 422, 429, 432, 433, 434, 435, 436,
– New Historicism, see s. v. 437, 459
History of Religions 47, 199, 205, 448 Idolatry 250, 258–59, 466, see also s. v.
Holiness 225, 228, 265, 266, 271, 286, 370 image
– Holy Spirit, see s. v. spirit Ignatius 452, 458, 460, 468, see also Index
– saint 47, 202, 205, 264, 265, 266 of Passages, s. v.
Homer 84, 130, 133, 194–96, 271, 297, Ignorance 81, 132, 133, 248, 289
316, 406, see also Index of Passages, s. v. Image, icon 5, 89, 126, 133, 193, 201–6,
Homily, sermon 220, 336 207, 213, 217, 244, 258, 274, 345, 346,
– Sermon on the Mount/Plain 360, 364, 363, 395, 424, 429, 431, 433, 434, 474,
368, 371, 378 478
Honor 134, 185, 209, 215, 256, 264, 269, – εἰκών 117, 134, 142, 259
284, 311, 312, 313, 314, 315, 317, 318, – see also s. v. idolatry
319, 320, 322, 324, 331, 332 Imitation 2, 23, 46, 54, 101, 107, 111, 112,
Hope 102, 109, 127, 133, 244, 246, 280, 191, 210, 217, 271, 312, 338, 400, 414,
282, 310, 328, 330, 431, 468, 484 438, 446, 451
Horace 72, 81, 274, 438, see also Index of – mimesis 23, 54, 81, 83, 186, 189, 199,
Passages, s. v. 223, 224, 240, 246, 271
House, home 160, 185, 187, 188, 193, 195, Incense 452, 461, 468
259, 260, 276, 302, 329, 335, 355, 376, Infidelity, faithlessness 234, 284, 289, 290
393, 409, 410, 431, 460, 469, 482 Impiety 31, 312, 315
Humanity, human 15, 47, 86, 106, 109, Impurity 373, 375, 462
121, 125, 131, 133, 134, 135, 138, 139, Infancy 298, 364, see also s. v. Gospel
140, 152, 170, 225, 226, 227, 234, 240, Inheritance 101, 199, 256, 375, 376, 426,
252, 255, 256, 258, 260, 261, 262, 263, 430, 431
264, 265, 266, 267, 268, 281, 291, 320, Injustice 90, 256, 297, 299, 311, 313, 314,
323, 352, 355, 365, 373, 376, 403, 406, 315, 316, 317, 318, 320, 322, 324, 326,
411, 412, 413, 432, 433, 435, 441, 443, 330, 331, 372, 373
Subject Index 601
Innocence 142, 286, 290, 310, 314, 315, 391 Italy 130, 192, 248
Institution 78, 82, 89, 90, 94, 136, 403,
407, 408, 429, 454, 458, 459 Jacob 109, 237, 238, 253, 254, 370
Intertextuality 3, 5, 62, 94, 128, 145–76, James, brother of the Lord 361, 362, 429
226, 228, 230, 257, 324, 325, 381, Jericho 236
397–416, 417–40 Jerusalem 6, 39, 142, 195, 209, 213, 215,
– allusion 53, 62, 94, 132, 146, 147, 155, 216, 217, 231, 235, 236–40, 245, 252,
161, 162–65, 166, 167, 170, 171, 210, 257, 260, 262, 263, 270, 276, 277, 282,
257, 258, 262, 274, 281, 285, 290, 295, 285, 286, 288, 292, 328, 329, 373, 376,
296, 304, 313, 327, 328, 330, 353, 398, 379, 381–96, 403, 410, 429, 448, 452,
405, 430, 452, 460 455, 456, 457, 460, 461, 462, 463, 464,
– echo 53, 146, 147, 167, 170, 254, 257, 467, 468
258, 267, 268, 270, 313, 317, 319, 393, Jesus passim
404, 407, 408, 409, 461 – “historical Jesus” 44, 53, 140, 150,
– extratext(ual) 82, 399, 400, 401, 403, 151, 338, 417, 418, 419, 422, 424, 426,
414, 416 446
– hypertext 149, 154, 155, 175 John Chrysostom 293, 296, see also Index
– hypotext 147, 149, 154, 155, 175 of Passages, s. v.
– intertext 149, 176, 423 John the Baptist 4, 109, 110, 111, 133, 139,
– quotation 4, 15, 114, 130, 132, 133, 191, 194, 195, 199, 213, 216, 221, 226,
134, 135, 136–38, 139, 140, 146, 147, 227, 232, 234, 243, 244, 245, 246, 257,
148, 149, 151, 152, 153, 154, 155, 156, 259, 261, 269, 286, 296, 290, 373, 394,
158, 161, 162–65, 166, 167, 168, 169, 403, 404, 405, 406, 409, 411, 421, 447,
170, 171, 172, 173, 175, 176, 186, 193, 452, 453, 455, 456
209, 244, 245, 270, 289, 295, 296, 343, Jordan River 179
353, 364, 367, 369, 370, 430, 476 Joseph, father of Jesus 292, 364, 431
– Vorlage 147, 148, 151, 155, 474, 475, Joseph of Arimathea 240, 275, 292–93,
478, 483 460, 476, 477, 478, 481
– see also s. v. textuality Joseph (patriarch) 278
Ionia 191, 195 Josephus 72, 287, 290, 295, 404, 406, see
Ios 195 also Index of Passages, s. v.
Irenaeus 74, 137, 204–5, see also Index of Joshua son of Nun 252, 407, 408
Passages, s. v. Joy 47, 120, 158, 258, 297, 311, 316, 344,
Irony 22, 209, 215, 253, 259, 268, 284, 285, 373, 392, 393, 412
287, 289, 290, 291, 294, 322, 323, 351, Judah 362, 403
444, 454, 457, 459, 464, 465, 469 Judea 128, 138, 139, 235, 257, 286, 403,
Isaac 237, 238 355, 360, 465, 468
Isis 188, 189 – Jew, Judean 2, 3, 4, 16, 17, 28, 31,
Isocrates 54, 102, 183, 317 47, 48, 51, 53, 68, 70, 78, 79, 94, 95,
Israel, Israelite 109, 133, 153, 156, 161, 107, 111, 114, 130, 132, 134, 138, 139,
166, 168, 169, 173, 174, 175, 209, 225, 143, 148, 158, 160, 166, 167, 168, 169,
237, 238, 244, 250, 251, 252, 253, 254, 171, 172, 173, 174, 179, 215, 216, 225,
255, 256, 257, 258, 259, 260, 261, 273, 235, 237, 238, 250, 257, 260, 265, 271,
264, 266, 267, 268, 271, 277, 279, 284, 279, 284, 285, 286, 287, 290, 294, 295,
285, 288, 289, 351, 352, 353, 360, 361, 297, 298, 299, 302, 309, 310, 313, 316,
362, 363, 367, 374, 377, 378, 379, 400, 325, 327, 352, 355, 359, 360, 361, 362,
403, 404, 405, 406, 407, 408, 409, 411, 369, 378, 399, 400, 402, 403, 404, 405,
415, 416, 430, 431, 436, 465, 466, 468 406–12, 415, 416, 420, 421, 422, 430,
602 Subject Index
431, 434, 435, 436, 438, 442, 444, 448, Killing, slaughter 126, 127, 255, 258, 286,
450, 452, 453, 454, 455, 456, 457, 460, 303, 309, 310, 314, 315, 317, 320, 321,
461, 462, 464, 465, 466, 467, 468, 469, 328, 368, 461
470, 477, 478, 479, 480, 482, 483, 484 King 126, 187, 188, 209, 255, 260, 263,
– Judaism 250, 361, 373, 377, 409, 410, 264, 266, 268, 277, 284, 285, 286, 287,
411, 452, 453, 473 288, 289, 302, 316, 317, 331, 351, 376,
– diaspora 254, 441, 444, 460, 462, 404, 407
463, 465, 466, 468, 470 – emperor, caesar 24, 41, 116, 172, 209,
– Hellenistic 277, 297–99, 410, 415 216, 291, 300, 302, 318, 319, 320, 324,
– Rabbinic 15, 69, 271, 316, 367 331, 452, 457, 468
– Second Temple 68, 156, 159, 173, – prince 255, 256, 260, 301, 362, 363, 374
174, 372, 378 – ruler 126, 183, 252, 260, 268, 313, 319,
Julius Caesar 48, 301, 302, 307, 318, 321, 324, 405, 432
322, 324, 326, 330, 355 Kingdom, reign 111, 140, 158, 160, 198,
Jupiter 301, 320, 457 222, 227, 229, 230, 232, 233, 235, 239,
Justice, righteousness 80, 127, 133, 251, 240, 245, 246, 247, 253, 255, 257, 258,
253, 255, 256, 258, 259, 266, 270, 286, 259, 260, 261, 264, 265, 266, 267, 271,
287, 290, 295, 309, 310, 311, 313, 314, 279, 281, 287, 288, 293, 296, 303, 320,
315, 316, 324, 329, 332, 353, 359, 362, 321, 352, 370, 374, 375, 376, 377, 378,
363, 366, 367, 368, 371, 372, 374, 375, 379, 405, 409, 452, 456, 457, 459
376, 377, 378, 379, 478, 479 – empire 29, 52, 160, 187, 284, 295, 298,
– accusation 189, 190, 260, 268, 283, 284, 308, 319, 331, 332, 353, 431, 432, 434,
285, 374, 431, 457 452, 457, 470
– acquittal 287, 314 Kleinliteratur 397
– condemnation, guilt 282, 286, 287, 297, Knowledge 11, 20, 31, 60, 61, 65, 66, 79,
324 80, 89, 91, 100, 104, 108, 109, 121, 125,
– defense 190, 237, 255, 283, 285, 298, 126, 129, 130, 131, 139, 143, 147, 148,
315, 318, 319, 326, 405, 456 152, 155, 159, 160, 166, 167, 170, 174,
– δικαιοσύνη 134 180, 189, 204, 210, 211, 215, 216, 232,
– δίκαιος 260, 479 234, 237, 238, 239, 240, 241, 247, 248,
– δικαιοῦν 255 258, 261, 265, 268, 276, 283, 287, 290,
– indictment 398, 312 313, 314, 327, 332, 344, 354, 355, 362,
– judge 254, 257, 268, 407, 408 370, 388, 399, 400, 402, 403, 410, 422,
– judgment 82, 86, 109, 175, 210, 244, 423, 426, 435, 436, 450, 451, 453, 454,
251, 253, 259, 262, 263, 264, 265, 266, 456, 460, 464, 465, 466, 467, 468, 477,
274, 285, 287, 307, 340, 348, 366, 368, 478, 481
375, 376, 377, 378, 379, 406, 432, 456, – epistemology 215, 217, 250, 421, 422,
465, 466, 470 428, 442, 449
– theodicy 310, 464, 470 – see also s. v. cognition, Gnosis, mind,
– trial, lawsuit 27, 38, 39, 87, 213, 258, understanding
275, 282–84, 285, 286, 287, 298, 300,
326, 330, 405, 469, 478 Lameness 158, 448, 455, 460, 463, 464,
– verdict 240, 283, 290, 298 467
– vindication 255, 256, 267, 298, 303, Lament 44, 124, 125, 187, 224, 290, 320,
304, 327, 328, 330, 331, 332, 333, 322, 482, 484, see also s. v. grief, weeping
370 Lamp 375, 391
Justin Martyr 72, 117, 130, 157, 172, see Land 185, 215, 250, 362, 363
also Index of Passages, s. v. – landscape, see s. v. setting
Subject Index 603
– landlord 187 Love 216, 231, 254, 257, 258, 259, 261,
– “promised l.” 259, 407 262, 263, 265, 269, 271, 281, 291, 309,
Laughter 280, 301 320, 321, 322, 329, 330, 331, 332, 359,
Law 27, 192, 251, 256, 260, 287, 297, 298, 366, 367, 368, 369, 370, 372, 374, 375,
313, 360, 361, 362, 363, 364, 365, 366, 378, 401, 429, 446, 452, 453, 454, 456,
367, 368, 369, 372, 374, 376, 377, 378, 457, 458, 459, 467, 468, 482, 484
379, 404, 405, 407, 410, 430, 431, 456, Lucian 84, 129, 145, 183, 190, 196, 248,
467 274, 304, 318, 322–24, 439, 450, see also
– command(ment), see s. v. Index of Passages, s. v.
– legalism 365, 366, 374, 456, 467 Lucullus 49, 309
– ordinance, statute 189, 251, 260, 460 Lutherbibel 213–14
– see also s. v. Torah Lydia 188
Lawlessness 256, 260, 374, 379
– antinomianism 365, 366 Macedonia 411
Lazarus 449 Magic
Levite 139, 251, 455 – curse, see s. v.
Life 10, 12, 39, 54, 59, 60, 62, 66, 68, 69, – exorcism, see s. v.
70, 92, 111, 114, 126, 127, 128, 132, 135, – incantation 192
141, 142, 181, 183, 184, 185, 186, 187, – necromancy 274
190, 191, 192, 193, 194, 195, 196, 197, – sorcery 188
198, 199, 207, 208, 209, 212, 213, 215, Man 40, 109, 125, 126, 127, 128, 134, 189,
217, 229, 233, 235, 236, 237, 238, 240, 190, 192, 193, 198, 209, 214, 217, 235,
256, 258, 263, 264, 265, 266, 269, 271, 241, 264, 275, 279, 281, 283, 284, 286,
273, 275, 284, 287, 288, 289, 290, 293, 288, 291, 292, 293–94, 297, 300, 303,
298, 300, 301, 303, 304, 307, 309, 310, 304, 313, 314, 315, 317, 318, 319, 323,
311, 312, 315, 316, 316, 320, 321, 322, 329, 343, 345, 353, 362, 364, 365, 368,
323, 324, 325, 326, 329, 330, 331, 332, 369, 372, 375, 377, 449, 450, 455, 462,
339, 345, 351, 363, 366, 372, 373, 377, 463, 464, 465, 466, 468, 469, 479, 482,
379, 386, 402, 407, 412, 414, 415, 421, 483
428, 429, 432, 435, 438, 441, 443, 446, Manichean Psalter 122
449, 451, 453, 461, 467, 468, 469 Manuscript, chirograph 70, 71, 73, 122,
– eternal l. 239, 365, 373, 375, 376, 431, 459 123, 130, 132, 147, 150, 151, 158, 185,
Literacy 335, 336, 349, 352, see also s. v. 187, 201, 205, 210, 345, 346, 350, 471
orality, reading, scribe, writing Marcion 157, 173, 472
Liturgy 336, 340, see also s. v. worship Marriage 86, 97, 127, 195, 237, 273, 319,
Livia 309, 319 365
Logic 67, 85, 86, 111, 131, 158, 207, 209, Martial 72
212, 213, 214, 215, 216, 217, 246, 270, Martin of Tours 299
338, 360, 378, 437 Martyrdom, martyr 87, 215, 240, 297–99,
Logion 16, 73, 114, 375, 472 309, 310, 311, 313, 325, 329, 330, 405,
Lord 43, 69, 125, 127, 128, 134, 187, 199, 458
204, 210, 215, 222, 226, 228, 236, 239, Mary Magdalene, see s. v. discipleship
244, 245, 250, 251, 252, 253, 254, 255, Mary, mother of James and Joses 292
256, 257, 259, 260, 261, 262, 263, 265, Mary, mother of Jesus 194, 240, 241, 291,
266, 267, 269, 276, 284, 288, 294, 298, 292, 395
304, 365, 370, 374, 378, 404, 408, 409, Masada 298
410, 412, 452, 455, 457, 468, 476, 477, Materiality, matter 70, 138, 139, 142, 146,
482, 483 154, 239, 271, 345, 411, 435
604 Subject Index
Maxim, aphorism 20, 192, 420, 422 Message 82, 89, 96, 116, 123, 128, 130,
Meal 4, 207, 239, 268, 275, 278–79, 321, 134, 138, 159, 166, 168, 210, 226, 231,
329, 330, 360, 392 232, 233, 234, 235, 236, 239, 240, 242,
– banquet 141, 279, 287, 375 248, 252, 259, 352, 383, 433, 454, 469,
– feast 360, 420, 434 484
– see also s. v. eucharist, food, Passover – messenger 158, 166, 199, 220, 226, 227,
Medicine 12, 110, 229, 401 229, 232, 234, 236, 241, 242, 244, 245,
– physician, surgeon 110, 189, 304, 322, 250–52, 254, 255, 258, 259, 262, 263,
401 265, 266, 267, 269, 294, 393
Mediation, medium 4, 5, 61, 68, 70, 71, Metaphor 11, 65, 89, 101, 102, 109, 136,
81, 105, 112, 136, 141, 146, 150, 153, 140, 141, 142, 209, 216, 229, 274, 304,
154, 156, 168, 207, 209, 210, 211, 215, 363, 371, 401, 420, 436, 467
217, 238, 252, 335, 336, 337, 348, 349, Metaphysics 439
406, 407, 411, 418, 421, 422, 423, 430, Metapontum 193
431, 432, 433, 436, 437, 474 Midrash 363, 438
– media studies 66 Miletus 123
Memory 5, 21, 50, 51, 52, 61, 62, 66, 71, Mind 61, 62, 76, 104, 105, 131, 133, 159,
72, 74, 75, 76, 103, 132, 148, 151, 152, 247, 257, 265, 309, 319, 321, 336, 343,
155, 159, 169, 197, 228, 239, 244, 249, 351, 370, 371, 388, 413, 469, 483, see
274, 341, 342, 346, 395, 418, 421, 423, also cognition, knowledge, under-
424, 425, 426, 427, 428, 430, 431, 432, standing
433, 434, 435, 437, 443, 445, 450, 451, Ministry 3, 39, 126, 175, 282, 393, 403,
460, 462, 464, 465, 469, 480 409, 410, 442, 443, 444, 445, 446, 447,
– collective m. 149, 156, 158, 168, 169, 448, 451, 453, 454, 456, 457, 460, 461,
170, 172, 174, 338, 426, 429, 430 462, 464, 465, 466, 467, 469
– commemoration 5, 209, 418, 426, 427, Miracle, wonder 51, 127, 128, 215, 216,
432 220, 228, 229, 231, 232, 234, 236, 278,
– cultural m. 5, 61, 112, 145, 153, 154, 279, 364, 376, 393, 410, 438, 448, 450,
155, 159, 160, 173, 174, 175, 187, 354, 459
429, 430, 474 – wonder-worker 302
– Erinnerung 75, 228, 421 Mission 4, 125, 127, 150, 169, 207, 210,
– floating gap 61, 62, 157–71, 171–76, 215, 216, 232, 259, 263, 277, 361, 365,
430 383, 389, 392, 393, 394, 395, 404, 410,
– Gedächtnis 239, 421 431, 352, 454, 454, 455, 456, 403, 408,
– generational gap 61, 158, 167, 168, 169, 469, 470
429, 430 – missionary 160, 393, 394
– memorial 317, 482 – see also s. v. apostle, calling
– mnemohistory 75, 428, 432, 439 Modesty 344
– mnemomyth 5, 417–40 Money 320, 365
– remembering 61, 72, 75, 76, 103, 108, – debt, see s. v.
129, 152, 251, 261, 283, 299, 322, 362, – denarius 275
421, 423, 424, 427, 428, 429, 430, 437, – economics 467
446, 460, 462, 468, 477, 478, 483, 484 – poverty, the poor 29, 323, 365, 376
– social m. 2, 5, 61, 145–76, 338, 428, – talent 375
419, 423–32, 434, 437 – taxation 452, 547
Mercy 125, 234, 290, 316, 366, 367, 368, – fiscus Judaicus 452, 457
369, 370, 372, 374, 376, 377, 378, see – tax collector 228, 363, 373
also s. v. compassion – treasure 231, 371, 375
Subject Index 605
– treasury 276 – character 4, 39, 40, 41, 49, 54, 66,
– wealth 190, 235, 276, 297, 371, 461 83, 84, 89, 111, 113, 114, 127, 182,
Monograph 19, 20, 24, 25, 36, 38, 39, 41, 185, 186, 188, 192, 193, 195, 196,
42, 55, 59, 97, 98, 114, 212, 248, 254 197, 198, 199, 210, 217, 224, 246,
Monologue 188, 212, 340 253, 256, 270, 273, 281, 285, 288,
Moon 137 300, 304, 350, 351, 352, 354, 398,
Moses 4, 130, 158, 161, 169, 183, 233, 237, 401, 403, 406, 411, 429, 449, 478–81
238, 244, 245, 251, 252, 258, 259, 261, – chreia, see s. v.
271, 359, 362, 364, 366, 381, 382, 403, – climax 175, 234, 261, 264, 284, 287,
404, 407, 408, 409, 411, 430, 431, 443, 288, 299, 351, 392, 465
448, 456, 457, 465, 466, 467 – coherence 41, 94, 97, 221, 222, 225,
Motif 20, 27, 58, 104, 127, 146, 148, 150, 393, 394, 411, 413, 422, 434, 436, 445
155, 156, 197, 209, 242, 298, 299, 308, – continuity, see s. v.
311, 388, 389, 390, 395, 459, 464, 474, – dénouement 213, 269
475–78, 480, 481, 482, 483 – καταστροφή 269
– “blind m.” 476, 480 – διήγησις 2, 196, 211, 212, 247, 249,
– Leitmotif 187, 273, 275 250, 269, 397, 401, 439
Mountain, hill 251, 259, 261, 370, 405 – doublet 277, 287, 289, 384, 389–94,
– Horeb 251 395
– Ida 195 – elaboration 189, 245, 247, 255, 257,
– Sinai 250, 251, 279, 407 263, 257, 263, 264, 269, 390
– Sion 252 – ἐξεργασία 245, 247
Muratorian Fragment 450 – episode 12, 49, 66, 71, 179, 188, 190,
Murder 193, 239, 286, 287, 301, 302, 371 191, 192, 193, 194, 195, 199, 211, 213,
Muse(s) 188, 189, 201, 205, 207, 215, 216, 221, 222, 223, 236, 284, 299, 304,
217 319, 322, 352, 353, 386, 388, see also s. v.
Music 11, 13, 115, 193, 273, 340 chreia
Mutilation 256, 298, 312 – episodic n. 4, 179, 182, 195, 196,
Mystery 4, 202, 243–71, 291, 293, 303, 197, 195, 196, 199, 200, 210, 211,
304, 407 212, 216, 217, 220, 221, 222
Myth 5, 19, 84, 134, 269, 304, 418, 429, – flashback 274, 299
430, 432, 433, 434, 435, 436, 437, 439, – foreshadowing 212, 213, 214, 246, 274,
445, see also s. v. narrative → plot 276, 280, 285, 289
– motif, see s. v.
Nard 275 – myth, see s. v.
Narrative passim – n. criticism 53, 63, 64, 65, 75, 337, 338,
– action 83, 182, 185, 186, 187, 188, 189, 339
191, 192, 193, 194, 195, 196, 199, 221, – narrator 45, 66, 111, 141, 185, 186,
223, 224, 234, 244, 246, 249, 406 188, 193, 195, 196, 199, 214, 228, 229,
– πρᾶξις 246, 249, 269–70 233, 234, 261, 269, 294, 339, 355, 364,
– analepsis 186, 196, 274 401, 408, 409, 438, 446, 447, 451, 459,
– antagonist 227, 431, 456 460, 461, 469, 475, see also s. v. story →
– arrangement, see s. v. storyteller
– catharsis, see s. v. purity – pace, speed 186, 189, 193, 199, 260,
– characterization 35, 38, 40, 41, 54, 58, 352, 353
64, 66, 191, 192, 199, 210, 274, 281, – plot 4, 13, 29, 35, 62, 63, 64, 66, 83, 91,
282, 287, 289, 353, 361, 404, 417, 444, 94, 115, 186, 190, 191, 193, 213, 221,
478–81 224, 246, 247, 249, 250, 256, 257, 260,
606 Subject Index
261, 263, 265, 269, 270–71, 401, 444, Nicea 123

480, 484, 485 Nicodemus 456, 457, 460
– μῦθος 219, 224, 246, 269–70 Nineveh 375
– point of view 66, 75, 185, 198, 199, 217, Noah 258
257, 270 Nobility 54, 129, 194, 298, 308–16, 317,
– prolepsis 186, 196, 210, 215, 274, 377, 318, 319, 321, 322, 323, 324, 325, 326,
432, 457 328, 329, 330, 331, 333, 362, 414
– protagonist 125, 129, 209, 221, 224, Nominalism 61, 62, 74
225, 226–27, 228, 229, 232, 233, 234, Novel 12, 16, 18, 21, 22, 26, 31, 36, 37, 38,
239, 297, 317, 328, 330, 404, 405, 407, 39, 40, 78, 84, 98, 115, 180, 184, 186,
414, 441, 455 187, 199, 349, 398, 438, 440, 447, 484
– resolution 186, 191, 332 – graphic 12, 13
– reversal 233, 311, 315, 320 – sci-fi/fantasy, see s. v. film
– περιπέτεια 233 – thriller, see s. v. film
– rhythm 191, 193, 196, 353 – western, see s. v. film
– setting, see s. v. Numa 309
– story, see s. v.
– tension 186, 191, 227, 228, 255, 441 Oath 283, 286, 366, 370
– theme, see s. v. Obedience 12, 59, 250, 257, 281, 297, 301,
– tone, see s. v. rhetoric 365, 367, 372, 375, 376, 377, 378, 465
– turning point 264, 382, 383, 384, 395, Odysseus 195
419 Old age 309, 311, 315, 316
– μετάβασις 264 Omission 158, 348, 377, 419, 420, 451,
– unity 79, 87, 246, 304, 387, 432, 433, 477, 479, 483
434, 435, 436, 437, see also below, s. v. – “Great Omission” 382, 383
Narratology 5, 63, 93, 220, 270, 341, 353, Ontology 223, 237, 238, 422
354, 355, 397, 398, 423 Opinion 117, 136, 193, 237, 247, 315, 343
Nazareth 109, 194, 214, 232, 260, 383, Opposition 253, 256, 260, 261, 263, 265,
393, 409, 430, 460, 461 267, 361, 372, 377, 402, 404, 405, 435, 460
Neon Teichos 194, 195 – opponent 189, 193, 195, 227, 228, 231,
Nepos 54, 183, 185, 186, 187, 196, 309, 233, 236, 237, 239, 240, 259, 291, 373
317, 318, see also Index of Passages, s. v. Oracle 41, 130, 131, 134, 324, 402, 403,
Nero 301, 319, 320 405, 407, 411
New Criticism 14 – Delphi 187, 188, 189, 192
New Historicism 423, 431 Orality 3, 4, 35, 50, 53, 66, 69, 70, 71, 72,
New Testament 32, 35, 44, 46, 48, 52, 62, 73, 75, 76, 105, 107, 145, 150, 151, 152,
65, 69, 77, 79, 81, 82, 85, 113, 114, 115, 153, 154, 155, 156, 160, 180, 193, 194,
117, 121, 130, 132, 135, 143, 144, 146, 204, 207, 210, 211, 216, 217, 246, 267,
147, 150, 151, 152, 153, 154, 155, 156, 271, 335, 336, 337, 338–42, 343, 346,
157, 159, 161, 166, 167, 168, 169, 170, 347, 348, 349, 350, 352, 353, 354, 356,
171, 182, 173, 175, 181, 183, 199, 210, 420, 422, 453, 454, 459, 484, see also s. v.
282, 293, 335, 336, 339, 385, 417, 425, speech
441, 442, 472, 483 Oration, see s. v. rhetoric
– Acts, see s. v. Acts → canonical Origen 74, 116, 117, 118, 119, 135,
– Catholic epistles, see s. v. 136–38, 139, 142, 143, 157, 252, 269, see
– Gospels, see s. v. also Index of Passages, s. v.
– Paul’s letters, see s. v. Paul Orthodoxy 96, 122–23, 414
– Revelation, 166, 450, 453 Otho 51, 320
Subject Index 607
Pagan 126, 129, 130, 132, 134, 274, 309, Pentecost 410
310, 402, 457 Performance 4–5, 35, 73, 89, 95, 96, 106,
Pain 126, 290, 312, 322, 323, 332, 351 121, 127, 128, 129, 136, 141, 150, 192,
Painting 169, 213, 300, 349, 395, 434 193, 246, 250, 260, 305, 335–56, 364,
Palestine 130, 418, 420, 422, 444, 453, 456, 388, 393, 410, 422, 434, 443, 448, 454,
462, 465, 466 456, 458, 460, 464, 465, 467, 472, 474
Papias 35, 71, 72, 73, 117, 204 – p. criticism 2, 66, 337, 339, 347, 348,
Papyrus 69, 472, 475 354, 355, 356
– papyrology 75 Pericles 343
Parable 42, 119, 199, 216, 229, 230, 239, Persecution 129, 216, 231, 266, 316, 375,
260, 261, 294, 303, 369, 371, 389, 438 376
– παραβολή 119 Perseverance 253, 292
Paradigm 21, 45, 48, 49, 68, 98, 172, 288, Persuasion 66, 134, 197, 247, 270, 346,
323, 324, 372, 419, 438, 472, 475 405, 429, 435, see also s. v. rhetoric
Parallel 47, 49, 79, 82, 90, 96, 128, 160, Petronius (centurion) 478, 479, 480
191, 194, 205, 256, 269, 274, 275, 277, Pesher 107, 271
278, 282, 287, 293, 296, 297, 299, 310, Peter, see s. v. discipleship
312, 314, 321, 325, 362, 382, 389, 392, Petition 126, 281, 289, 293, 479
401, 404, 405, 420, 442, 444, 450, 451, – supplication 281, 301, 344
458, 460, 463, 469, 473, 475, 476, 479, – see also s. v. prayer
481, 483, 484 Pharisee 189, 195, 228, 232, 259, 260, 261,
Paralysis 124, 365, 464 351, 361, 365, 366, 367, 368, 369, 370,
Parody 22, 107 371, 372, 373, 374, 375, 377, 379, 404,
Parousia 210, 410, 459 405, 421, 456, 457, 463, 464, 466, 467,
Passion(s), see s. v. emotion, suffering 478
Passion narrative 5–6, 45, 52, 212, 234, Pherecydes 192, 302
267, 273–305, 313, 326, 352, 405, 473, Phoenicia 195
475, 478, 481 Philippi 148, 149
Passover 268, 275, 276–77, 278, 279, 286, Philo 45, 72, 131, 456, see also Index of
287, 476 Passages, s. v.
Patmos 123 Philology 250, 471
Patriarch, see s. v. ancestry Philosophy 3, 40, 59, 61, 62, 95, 114, 128,
Paul 4, 18, 37, 38, 39, 40, 41, 47, 125, 130, 129, 130, 131, 135, 143, 183, 188, 189,
136, 148, 149, 154, 157, 159, 161, 168, 190, 246, 297, 302, 309, 310, 311, 312,
169, 170, 171, 198, 201–17, 271, 279, 313, 316, 321, 322, 323, 324, 329, 330,
281, 288, 361, 362, 404, 405, 406, 410, 331, 332, 359, 367, 397–416, 423, 451
411, 412, 429, 446 Philostratus 102, 183, 302, 313, 318, 322,
– corpus Paulinum 35, 38, 69, 130, 160, 323, 413, 451, see also Index of Passages,
161, 166, 171, 207, 211, 216, 217, 429 s. v.
– 1 Corinthians 35 Phocaea (Ionian) 195
– Hebrews 166 Phocion 317, 318, 321
– Romans 161, 169 Photius 123
– deutero-Paulines 166, 170 Piety 297, 301, 315, 317, 376
– see also Index of Passages, s. v. – εὐσέβεια 298
Pausanias 186 – τὸ ὅσιον 297, 322
Peace 250, 280, 301, 309, 310, 317, 319, Pilate 195, 213, 240, 267, 268, 275, 284,
322, 324, 329, 330, 331, 332, 352, 353, 286, 287, 289, 293, 294, 326, 330, 457,
373, 377 477, 478, 479, 480
608 Subject Index
Pity 105, 132 Post-structuralism 149, 150

Pitys 195 Power 60, 64, 71, 93, 125, 128, 131, 142,
Plan 114, 127, 210, 215, 266, 268, 270, 188, 189, 192, 204, 216, 227, 228, 231,
313, 321, 406, 411, see also s. v. council 232, 236, 237, 238, 239, 240, 241, 252,
Plato 11, 12, 47, 61, 72, 124, 130, 297, 302, 253, 256, 258, 260, 261, 263, 264, 265,
303, 310, 313, 314–16, 317, 321, 439, 267, 271, 279, 291, 294, 302, 312, 316,
451, 454–55, see also Index of Passages, 318, 324, 332, 343, 346, 352, 364, 374,
s. v. 393, 404, 406, 408, 409, 410, 412, 432,
Plausibility 36, 78, 159, 160, 221, 225, 227, 433, 435, 450, 467
241, 279, 346, 393, 421, 428, 438, 444, – δύναμις 1, 27, 128, 131, 142, 204, 217,
452, 453, 461, 470, 476 264, 271, 294, 296
Plautus 274 – dynamism, dynamic 3, 35, 58, 60, 64,
Pliny the Elder 72 65, 66, 68, 76, 78, 81, 85, 88, 89, 92, 95,
Pliny the Younger 274, 319, 452, see also 115, 217, 282, 342, 347, 348, 378, 393,
Index of Passages, s. v. 394, 399, 400, 407, 411, 425
Plot, see s. v. conspiracy or narrative – see also s. v. strength
Plotinus 309, 322, 324, 332 Praise 17, 65, 194, 204, 255, 294, 312, 332,
Plutarch 15, 16, 45, 48, 49, 51, 54, 72, 114, 344, 375, 393
129, 182, 183, 199, 274, 288, 299, 300, – emperor-laud 452, 457, 468
304, 316, 317, 318, 319, 320, 321–22, Prayer 111, 124, 125, 126, 131, 240, 280,
413, see also Index of Passages, s. v. 281, 352, 353, 355, 366, 368, 371, 375,
Pneumatology, see s. v. spirit 376
Poetics 11, 65, 207, 216, 217, 270, 354, see – Lord’s Prayer 69
also s. v. Aristotle – see also s. v. petition
Poetry 81, 83, 102, 121, 134, 191, 194, 195, Preaching 47, 110, 124, 125, 126, 152, 160,
196, 220, 221, 223, 246, 253, 256, 263, 168, 205, 239, 243, 251, 257, 265, 271,
398, 436, 438, 447 276, 375, 406, 410
– dithyramb 81 Pride 344
– elegy 11 Priest 139, 251, 255, 369, 403, 455, 457,
– epic 22, 26, 38, 39, 40, 62, 78, 84, 186, 461
195, 196, 222, 271, 398 – chief p. 268, 276, 282, 283, 285, 286,
– epigram 194 289, 373, 374, 377, 379, 478, 479
– lyric 11 – high p. 126, 127, 133, 195, 236, 237,
– meter 58, 194 255, 264, 268, 282, 283, 284, 286, 289,
Poison 315, 319, 320, 322, 323 290, 291, 292
– aconite 312 Print 70, 71, 150, 151
– hemlock 315, 318 – printing press 68, 71, 151
Polemics 64, 125, 232, 367, 372, 405, 414, – typography 68, 71, 72, 150
431 Procession 209, 277, 285
Polybius 84, 94, 246, 247, 248, 249, 450, Proclamation 4, 111, 113, 117, 135, 142,
see also Index of Passages, s. v. 151, 157, 158, 168, 175, 198, 199, 204,
Polycarp 148, 149 207, 209, 210, 211, 217, 225, 227, 238,
Polyvalence 88, 119, 442–45, 449, 452, 240, 242, 243, 244, 252, 259, 271, 287,
460–62, 470 291, 293, 298, 372, 375, 393, 410, 435
Pompey 48, 301, 319, 326 – kerygma 4, 82, 207, 210, 213, 216
Porphyry 191–93, 196, 304, 309, 318, see – κηρύσσειν 126, 204, 210, 257
also Index of Passages, s. v. Prologue 15, 54, 58, 86, 109, 110, 111, 179,
Positivism 83–84, 339 401, 431, 432, 438, 440, 447–50
Subject Index 609
Promise 5, 156, 170, 171, 175, 215, 244, Pseudepigraphy 429
245, 246, 257, 258, 259, 269, 270, 293, Psychology 86, 114, 192, 255, 274, 337,
295, 344, 372, 402, 403, 407, 410, 459, 350, 354, 355, 356, 416, 424
468 Punishment 126, 235, 256, 298, 311,
Proof-text 148, 153, 157, 159, 172, 174, 372–78, 464, 468
175, 430 Purity 232, 366, 370, 371, 462, 480
Propertius 274 – mikveh 461
Prophecy, prophet 4, 94, 109, 111, 113, – purification, catharsis 128, 223, 224,
130, 132, 133, 134, 135, 143, 147, 153, 236, 251, 371, 374, 456, 461, 462
157, 158, 160, 161, 166, 169, 171, 173, – see also s. v. baptism, washing
175, 198, 199, 201, 209, 212, 215, 216, Pythagoras 183, 184, 191–93, 196
225, 226, 228, 232, 234, 244, 245, 246,
250, 252, 254, 256, 257, 260, 261, 262, Quintilian 4–5, 335–56
270, 271, 279, 283, 284, 295, 310, 362, Qumran 15, 69, 152, 271, 363, 372, 373,
363, 364, 365, 366, 367, 368, 369, 370, 377, 461, 467
372, 374, 376, 377, 378, 381, 382, 403, – Dead Sea Scrolls 367
404, 405, 406, 407, 408, 409, 410, 411, – CD 362–63
416, 430, 434, 435, 443, 455, 457, 459, – MMT 363
461, 463, 464, 465 – 1QS 372–73
– Daniel, see s. v. Hebrew Bible → writings – 11QTemple 363
– Elijah 134, 158, 226, 232, 233, 234, 238, – see also Index of Passages, s. v.
250, 251, 252, 257, 259, 262, 269, 271, – Teacher of Righteousness 363
275, 289, 290, 353, 381, 403, 404, 407, Quotation, see s. v. intertextuality
408, 409, 455, 465
– Elisha 238, 381, 407, 408, 409 Reader-response 5, 37, 66, 82, 149, 337,
– Ezekiel 228, 485 397
– Isaiah 4, 62, 69, 109, 111, 134, 146, Reading 3, 12, 29, 30, 46–47, 53, 55, 65,
147, 154, 157–71, 172, 173, 174, 175, 73, 91, 104, 112, 115, 116, 117, 119,
198, 225, 226, 244, 245, 252, 253–56, 122, 123, 131, 132, 141, 142, 145, 146,
257–69, 270, 362, 409, 411 151, 154, 155, 156, 158, 159, 166, 168,
– – Deutero-Isaiah 4, 246, 253, 256, 170, 172, 174, 198, 204, 208, 210, 230,
257, 263, 266, 269, 270, 295, 408 231, 238, 239, 257, 273, 308, 321, 323,
– Joel 410 326–28, 330, 333, 335, 336, 339, 340,
– Jonah 375 343, 346, 348, 351, 353, 354, 364, 365,
– Malachi 4, 244, 245, 250–52 369, 377, 385, 386, 391, 392, 397–416,
– Moses, see s. v. 431, 440, 450, 462, 469, 474, 481, 484
– Samuel 409 – reader 5, 13, 15, 16, 17, 20, 29, 37,
– see also s. v. divination, oracle, and 47, 53, 64, 66, 67, 71, 72, 77, 80, 82,
Index of Passages 88, 89, 91, 95, 99, 106, 113, 115, 116,
Prose 24, 38, 58, 79, 113, 132, 201, 209, 117, 118, 119, 120, 121, 129, 130, 132,
211, 397, 398, 401, 413 133, 134, 136, 143, 144, 149, 170, 186,
Proteus 323 198, 209, 210, 211, 213, 216, 219, 224,
Protreptic 191 225, 226, 227, 229, 230, 231, 232, 234,
Provenance 17, 122, 127, 187, 209, 361, 239, 239, 242, 247, 249, 256, 270, 271,
402, 403 274, 275, 288, 291, 294, 299, 305, 326,
Providence 95, 279 327, 328, 332, 337, 339, 343, 344, 347,
Psalm(s) 133, 161, 295, 327, 371, see also 348, 350, 365, 378, 383, 385, 388, 389,
s. v. song, and Index of Passages, s. v. 390, 391, 398, 400, 401, 402, 403, 404,
610 Subject Index
405, 406, 408, 409, 410, 411, 412, 413, Restoration 44, 126, 133, 251, 254, 255,
414, 415, 416, 417, 423, 430, 436, 437, 256, 262, 266, 281, 287, 319, 329, 403,
438, 439, 440, 443, 450, 455, 469, 474, 431, 462
484 Resurrection 5, 38, 39, 45, 92, 125, 127,
Reception 2, 4, 35, 36, 62, 64, 66, 67, 89, 128, 141, 148, 179, 198, 207, 209, 211,
95, 105, 113, 115, 116, 117, 121, 122, 212, 213, 214, 215, 216, 219, 220, 221,
123, 124–29, 135, 143, 144, 149, 152, 224, 228, 229, 230, 231, 232, 233, 234,
154, 157, 158–59, 173, 187, 197, 210, 235, 236, 237, 238, 239, 241, 242, 256,
222, 238, 314, 354, 418, 421, 422, 423, 262, 263, 269, 270, 271, 291, 294, 303,
434, 438, 439, 430, 436, 437, 440, 453, 327, 328, 331, 352, 364, 365, 375, 377,
465–69 404, 417, 419, 424, 429, 439, 459, 473,
Recognition 6, 11, 15, 30, 34, 45, 67, 82, 475, 476, 479, 480, 481, 482, 483
84, 87, 89, 100, 102, 104, 107, 108, 112, Revelation 3, 29, 43, 45, 95, 125, 142, 190,
133, 134, 146, 147, 184, 197, 209, 228, 193, 196, 216, 234, 262, 270, 291, 300,
232, 234, 247, 248, 252, 265, 285, 288, 304, 363, 371, 377, 407, 411, 430, 432,
289, 296, 315, 326, 327, 355, 366, 378, 438, 439, 441–70
403, 414, 415, 427–28, 435, 437, 447, – book of R., see s. v. New Testament
468 Revenant, ghost 5–6, 273–305
Reconciliation 120, 251, 257, 296, 298, Revolution 52, 97, 150, 207, 211, 217, 286,
352, 368, 411, 412 287, 289, 460, 461
Redaction 5, 49, 124, 219, 259, 282, 386, Reward 235, 252, 322, 372–78
421, 472, 473, 474, 475, 477, 478, 479, Rhetoric 3, 5, 15, 21, 26, 32, 64, 66, 67, 70,
481 79, 87, 88, 89, 92, 93, 95, 104, 105, 106,
– redaction criticism 64, 85, 97, 152, 394, 107, 108, 109, 110, 111, 118, 122, 137,
418, 472 216, 219, 246, 248, 266, 270, 271, 300,
Redemption 256, 257, 266, 277, 288, 464, 301, 335–56, 398, 401, 404, 406, 408,
467, 469 411, 414, 415, 432, 433, 434, 435, 436,
– ransom 236, 263, 266, 329, 377 439, 440, 441–70
Re-enactment 5, 257, 471–85 – apologetic, see s. v.
Reformation 207 – arrangement, see s. v.
Regret, remorse 193, 282, 344 – brevity, see s. v.
Rejection 122, 123, 139, 166, 169, 175, – charm 346
232, 254, 261, 263, 264, 267, 270, 285, – chiasm 18, 301, 386
327, 330, 341, 345, 366, 441, 455, 465, – clarity 344
466, 470 – comparison, see s. v.
Reliability 84, 96, 420, 422, 424 – delivery, actio 5, 34, 125, 335–56,
Religion 47, 174, 199, 204, 284, 295, 429, 460
440, 448, 468 – encomium, see s. v.
Rembrandt 349 – epitaphios 310
Reminding 16, 149, 274, 276, 279, 288, – figure, device 26, 49, 93, 300, 301, 411,
388, 479, 480, 481 433
Remus 47 – gesture, see s. v.
Repentence 124, 133, 190, 227, 244, 251, – invention 342
257, 265, 287, 296, 319, 320, 374, 375, – memorization, see s. v. memory
377, 379, 409 – New R. 105, 106, 107, 108
– μετάνοια, -νοεῖν 210, 257, 261, 265 – oration, speech 26, 29, 40, 66, 84, 95,
– penitence 296, 344, 371 109, 111, 114, 124, 125, 189, 195, 204,
Reproach 344 238, 239, 240, 310, 314, 318, 321, 335,
Subject Index 611
337, 342, 343, 344, 349, 413, see also s. v. Sallust 49
orality, speech Salvation 134, 138, 139, 141, 175, 185,
– parallelism, see s. v. 187, 211, 244, 253, 254, 255, 263, 270,
– petition, see s. v. 275, 276, 279, 284, 288, 289, 291, 355,
– plausibility, see s. v. 364, 370, 375, 376, 377, 407, 409, 411,
– pleonasm 70, 275, 352 467
– propriety 344, 345 – deliverance, rescue 125, 256, 269, 290,
– protreptic, see s. v. 298, 352
– r. criticism 2, 66, 87 – soteriology 141, 142, 169, 191, 394
– style 36, 38, 58, 66, 69, 70, 84, 101, 104, – σωτηρία, σῴζειν, κτλ. 134, 138, 139,
108, 114, 115, 120, 122, 123, 136, 145, 140, 254, 322
184, 186, 188, 189, 194–96, 201, 204, Samaritan 91, 140, 141, 142, 386, 410
209, 212, 308, 338, 341, 342, 345, 349, Samos 187, 188, 191, 192, 195
351, 352, 398, 403, 436, 447 Samson 408
– synecdoche, see s. v. Sanhedrin 213, 264, 268, 283, 285, 286,
– tone 13, 58, 134, 171, 343, 344, 347, 292, 405
351, 352, 353 Sarcasm 291, 315
– topos 26, 183, 184, 404, 414 Satire 11, 22, 84, 189, 319, 446
– trope 308, 310, 442 Satyrus 183, 185
– verisimilitude, see s. v. Saul 407, 408, 409
– see also s. v. persuasion Schema, scheme 3, 86, 87, 103, 108, 109,
Rhetorica ad Herennium 342 110, 147, 157, 159, 171, 311, 400, 416,
Riddle 167, 188, 316, 382, 438, 442, 449 442, 457, 470, 477
Ritual, rite 4, 89, 155, 207, 210, 264, 276, School 20, 40, 69, 195, 199, 295, 340, 345,
277, 279, 293, 315, 368, 370, 371, 420, 400, 401, 404, 405, 413, 416
426, 434, 458 – αἵρεσις 123, 400, 404
Rome 41, 123, 204, 209, 285, 287, 288, – sect, sectarian 40, 372, 373, 377, 379,
300, 320, 406, 411, 457 403, 404, 405, 413, 453
– Greco-Roman, see s. v. Greek Scribe, scribalism 3, 66, 68, 69, 70, 71, 72,
– Roman 2, 21, 24, 29, 73, 160, 209, 75, 76, 151, 189, 227, 228, 231, 236, 237,
226, 244, 248, 263, 264, 266, 268, 284, 260, 262, 268, 276, 289, 293, 366, 367,
285, 287, 295, 300, 308, 309, 310, 312, 373, 374, 375, 379, 479
314, 317, 320, 331, 332, 336, 337, 340, – writing 1, 4, 5, 46, 70, 71, 73, 119, 149,
342, 343, 345, 346, 351, 352, 421, 438, 150, 152, 156, 157, 158, 193, 195, 198,
452, 454, 457, 458, 460, 461, 468, 470, 201, 204, 205, 207, 210, 211, 217, 230,
478 244, 246, 256, 260, 262, 267, 268, 269,
Romulus 47, 355 286, 295, 304, 335, 336, 338, 340, 341,
343, 346, 348, 349, 350, 351, 356, 437,
Sabbath 227, 228, 240, 241, 366, 369, 454, 459, 474, 475, 477, 483, 484
370, 374, 455, 456, 460, 464, 465, 467, Scripture(s) 3, 46, 47, 53, 65, 94, 95,
469 107, 114, 130–32, 134, 135, 143, 152,
Sacrifice 236, 251, 255, 258, 279, 285, 304, 154, 155, 156, 160, 161, 166, 168, 169,
309, 310, 312, 364, 369, 370, 377, 446, 171, 173, 174, 189, 198, 210, 211, 212,
468, 470 225, 237, 238, 243, 244, 245, 246, 257,
– libation 193, 315 262, 264, 266, 267, 268, 270, 271, 290,
– offering 190, 193, 251, 255, 266, 285, 294, 295, 296, 303, 304, 308, 327, 328,
315, 369, 452, 457, 461, 468 330, 362, 363, 364, 365–72, 378, 382,
Sadducee 237, 238, 373, 404, 461, 467 397–416, 417, 421, 424, 430, 431, 432,
612 Subject Index
434, 435, 436, 437, 439, 449, 455, 470, – autopsy 439, 440
476 – see also s. v. visuality
– γραφή, -αί, 147, 152, 204, 205, 211, 212 Sign 40, 124, 128, 300, 301, 348, 409, 410,
Sea, lake 139, 248 411, 420, 434, 448, 449, 450, 455, 456,
– Galilee 139, 215, 260, 274, 280, 377, 457, 459, 461, 463, 464, 465, 470, 479,
459 481
– Mediterranean 26, 346, 454, 457 – σημεῖον 128, 188, 300, 448
– waves 229 Silence 5, 190, 196, 219, 229, 235, 255,
Seal 251, 284, 438, 479 256, 268, 283, 284, 285, 291, 313, 326,
Secret 72, 213, 231, 256, 262, 263, 264, 336, 340, 351, 480, 481
269, 270, 346, 375, 459, 477 Siloam 461, 462, 463
– messianic secret 4, 32, 243–71, 353 Simile 118, 119, 133
Sedition 192 Simon of Cyrene 275, 288
Semiotics 222, 225, 424, 249 Sin 127, 228, 250, 255, 257, 259, 264, 266,
Seneca 314, 319, see also Index of Pas- 319, 364, 377, 463–64, 466, 469, 480
sages, s. v. Slavery, bondage 188, 253, 254, 277, 407
Sepphoris 361 – δοῦλος 127, 128, 251, 253, 256, 266
Septimus Severus 129 – παῖς 253, 254, 256, 258, 266
Setting, landscape 21, 58, 63, 65, 104, 109, – servant 127, 128, 139, 168, 169, 170,
128, 186, 195, 246, 256, 279, 283, 361, 173, 175, 250–52, 253–56, 256–69, 271,
403, 415 281, 285, 295, 298, 321, 369
– social setting, Sitz im Leben 2, 10, 34, – “servant song,” see s. v. song
38, 54, 58, 61, 67, 72, 75, 82, 88, 89, 91, – slave 171, 187, 188, 189, 253, 374, 375
93, 96, 99, 101, 104, 105, 106, 107, 108, – “suffering servant,” see s. v. suffering
109, 110, 112, 119, 128, 133, 136, 137, Sleep 125, 280, 474
140, 145, 148, 149, 152, 154, 155, 157, Smyrna 123, 124, 194, 195
173, 176, 185, 199, 222, 225, 308, 309, Society, social 2, 5, 10, 11, 34, 38, 54, 58,
310, 326, 335, 346, 347, 353, 355, 360, 62, 67, 80, 82, 87, 88, 89, 91, 94, 95, 96,
365, 366, 370, 419, 429, 440, 445, 448, 101, 104, 105, 106, 107, 108, 109, 110,
449, 452, 454, 456, 460, 463, 465, 466, 112, 118, 149, 152, 154, 155, 156, 160,
468, 469, 470 174, 192, 253, 257, 286, 323, 336, 337,
Shakespeare, William 301, 307 346, 360, 399, 407, 408, 411, 418, 419,
Shame 81, 125, 254, 255, 293, 312, 331, 424, 425, 426, 427, 428, 429, 433, 435,
332, 373 437, 438, 440, 445, 450, 454, 461, 462,
Shema 370 463, 467
Sickness, disease 124, 126, 128, 129, 189, – class 268
194, 213, 259, 303, 309, 311, 315, 316, – social memory, see s. v.
326, 369, 393, 463–64 – status 253, 254, 264, 268, 323
– fever 127, 229, 231, 303, 320 Sociology 29, 355, 402
– gangrene 324 Socrates 190, 297, 298, 302, 307, 311–14,
Sight, seeing 13, 125, 146, 128, 157, 190, 314–16, 317, 318, 321, 324, 329, 332,
194, 199, 201, 205, 215, 229, 230, 234, 405, 451
236, 239, 242, 245, 251, 252, 260, 262, Sodom 376
263, 264, 269, 274, 276, 283, 291, 295, Solomon 375, 409
201, 320, 323, 324, 339, 343, 351, 369, Song, singing 11, 13, 65, 83, 104, 115, 192,
370, 374, 375, 394, 410, 431, 439, 448, 344
463, 464, 465, 466, 467, 469, 470, 479, – “servant song” 168, 169, 170, 173, 253,
480, 482 295
Subject Index 613
– see also s. v. psalm Stichometry of Nicephorus 122, 252
Sophist 40, 400, 404, 405, 413 Stoicism 303, 321, 404, 405
– Second Sophistic 414 Stone 132, 133, 240, 241, 479, 482
(Ps.-)Soranus 185–87, 196 Story 5, 6, 13, 15, 16, 17, 18, 27, 47, 54, 64,
Soul 125, 128, 134, 192, 224, 253, 274, 66, 70, 85, 91, 94, 95, 107, 110, 113, 123,
280, 297, 300, 301, 307, 346, 370, 401 125, 127, 128, 136, 155, 159, 160, 169,
– psychagogy 401 170, 179, 181, 182, 186, 189, 191, 193,
– ψυχή 125, 128, 131, 134, 258, 266, 267, 195, 197, 198, 208, 210, 211, 213, 215,
274, 300 216, 220, 243, 244, 245, 246, 256, 262,
Sound mapping 66, 352, 353 269, 273, 274, 277, 284, 286, 287, 288,
Source 1, 4, 5, 17, 26, 38, 40, 48, 49, 51, 294, 295, 296, 298, 299, 301, 302, 304,
54, 58, 107, 113, 123, 130, 135, 138, 141, 305, 310, 335, 337, 339, 342, 347, 350,
146, 147, 149, 150, 152, 155, 156, 161, 352, 353, 354, 383, 386, 388, 389, 392,
176, 179, 193, 274, 296, 297, 325, 327, 393, 395, 396, 400, 403, 404, 407, 408,
335, 348, 360, 382, 383, 390, 391, 401, 409, 420, 430, 431, 432, 436, 439, 442,
412, 413, 418, 419, 420, 423, 446, 448, 443, 444, 445, 447, 448, 449, 450, 451,
449, 453, 461, 468, 473, 485 452, 453, 454, 459, 460, 461, 462, 472,
– s. criticism 28, 73, 152, 349, 381, 383, 473, 474, 475, 472, 479, 480, 481, 482,
390, 436, 461, 473 483, 484, 485
Sowing 140, 229, 230, 371 – storyteller 29, 45, 95, 269, 294, 346,
Sparta, Lacedaimonian 318 353, 427, 474, 476, 477
Speech, speaking 95, 109, 130, 134, 137, Strength 109, 126, 213, 252, 254, 257, 258,
140, 186, 188, 189, 193, 199, 204, 210, 259, 260, 265, see also s. v. power
224, 233, 234, 238, 246, 247, 252, 259, Strife, conflict 64, 192, 220, 227, 228, 236,
261, 281, 342, 343, 345, 347, 355, 386, 237, 309, 314, 361, 364, 372, 374
410, 413, 437, 449, 467 Storm 192, 377
– free s., see s. v. boldness Structuralism 12, 99
– speaker 88, 119, 131, 247, 335, 343, Subject matter 2, 10, 13, 24, 36, 38, 40, 47,
350 49, 54, 58, 94, 104, 109, 112, 114, 129,
– s.-act theory 88, 118, 151 143, 173, 175, 183, 243, 262, 297, 299,
– see also s. v. orality, rhetoric → oration 300, 301, 302, 307, 311, 317, 322, 323,
Spirit 117, 128, 135, 138, 139, 141, 142, 324, 325, 326, 344, 359, 399, 400, 413,
275, 281, 340, 371, 372, 401, 404, 412, 415, 458, 468
435, 440 – material 5, 24, 36, 43, 59, 70, 71, 72, 83,
– Holy S. 109, 142, 189, 216, 221, 226, 100, 107, 112, 113, 115, 122–24, 132,
227, 244, 253, 254, 257, 258, 262, 271, 138, 142, 179, 204, 213, 282, 285, 303,
364, 376, 404, 405, 406–12, 416, 424, 310, 327, 338, 368, 382, 384, 390, 391,
456, 459 417, 420, 421, 422, 444, 445, 446, 447,
– Parakletos 417, 439 448, 449, 451, 453, 454, 471, 472, 475,
– πνεῦμα 128, 142, 216, 217, 253, 271, 476, 485
299, 303, 393 – topic 5, 26, 38, 47, 58, 100, 159, 166,
– pneumatology 217, 403, 406, 408 192, 197, 310, 336, 341, 390
– unclean/evil spirit 228, 231, 324, 264, – see also s. v. content
281, 373 Subjectivity 341, 419, 421, 424
– see also s. v. demon Succession 40, 265, 286, 414
Spit 255, 268, 283, 295, 328 Suetonius 45, 51, 182, 183, 274, 300–2,
Star 137 303, 304, 310, 318–21, 324, see also
Starvation 186, 193, 303, 318, 323 Index of Passages, s. v.
614 Subject Index
Suffering 125, 126, 141, 169, 170, 189, 228, 251, 260, 276, 279, 284, 288, 289,
198, 208, 212, 214, 232, 233, 235, 236, 292, 299, 311, 324, 332, 342, 343, 344,
238, 239, 245, 246, 255, 257, 262, 263, 349, 359, 360, 362, 363, 364, 365, 366,
264, 266, 267, 280, 281, 284, 288, 293, 367, 368, 369, 372, 373, 376, 378, 394,
295, 303, 310, 313, 314, 315, 324, 328, 395, 401, 402, 403, 404, 405, 406, 407,
329, 330, 332, 351, 353, 378, 457, 458, 410, 412, 413, 414, 415, 416, 437, 446,
478, 479 451, 454, 457, 474
– “suffering servant” 168, 169, 170, 255, – διδαχή 216
256, 263, 264, 266, 285, 288 – education 47, 51, 54, 89, 101, 142, 143,
– torture, torment 290, 255, 281, 290, 191, 194, 220, 404, 405, 412, 413
298, 312, 313, 314, 320, 476 – παιδεία 404, 405, 414, 416
Suicide 298, 301, 309, 311, 316, 318, 320, – πεπαιδευμένοι 404, 405, 413, 414
321, 322 – learning 81, 103, 108, 125, 134, 191,
Sun 137, 302, 375 193, 271, 343, 369, 377, 402, 403, 404,
Sychar 140 414
Symbol 47, 113, 131, 141, 142, 143, 215, – see also s. v. discipleship
232, 236, 258, 259, 279, 294, 307, 352, Television, see s. v. film
355, 422, 433, 434, 435, 451, 480 Temple 126, 127, 331, 457
Synagogue 228, 229, 271, 295, 361, 405, – in Jerusalem 142, 160, 209, 213, 216,
409, 441, 452, 453, 456, 460, 463, 466, 236, 245, 251, 268, 270, 276, 283, 289,
468 290, 291, 293, 326, 328, 330, 331, 361,
Synecdoche 4, 207, 209, 211, 212, 213, 363, 369, 370, 377, 403, 404, 431, 448,
215, 216 452, 456, 457, 460, 461, 462, 463
Temptation 245, 261, 292, 364, 368, 409
Tacitus 24, 38, 41, 49, 51, 183, 314, 318, – testing 227, 258, 260, 313, 407
322, see also Index of Passages, s. v. Terence 345
Tarentum 193 Tertullian 472, 476, see also Index of Pas-
Tatian 450, 472 sages, s. v.
Taxonomy 11, 12, 80, 110, 115, 120, 146, Testimonium 148, 153, 155, 159, 161, 167,
146, 181, 440 172
– category 28, 29, 57, 58, 61, 62, 65, 66, Testimony, see s. v. witness
75, 77, 79, 80, 81, 83, 84, 85, 86, 87, 88, Textual criticism 68, 69, 151, 152, 158,
90, 91, 96, 99, 100, 101, 103, 104, 105, 201, 210, 370, 377
108, 109, 113, 114, 115, 118, 119, 120, Textuality 60, 68, 70, 72, 73, 74, 75, 80,
121, 132, 140, 146, 149, 151, 156, 158, 82, 88, 92, 101, 104, 105, 106, 108, 131,
181, 309, 310, 311, 317, 326, 337, 343, 151, 152, 154, 155, 157, 160, 204, 217,
372, 390, 397, 398, 401, 411, 417, 436, 221–22, 400, 402, 432
437, 438, 439 – pluriformity 3, 68, 69, 70, 71, 73, 150,
– classification, class 3, 11, 12, 19, 24, 28, 151
29, 37, 40, 60, 61, 72, 65, 74, 76, 77, 78, – text passim
79, 80–92, 95, 96, 98, 100, 108, 112, 118, – textology 221, 222
120, 121, 136, 180, 190, 228, 231, 389, – see also s. v. intertextuality
397, 401, 402, 445, 446 Thanksgiving 4, 207, 315, 371
Teaching, instruction 17, 19, 36, 39, 41, Theft 188, 371, 466, 467
51, 72, 89, 113, 114, 117, 119, 124, 125, Theme 3, 26, 64, 65, 87, 96, 103, 108, 109,
128, 129, 130, 135, 136, 137, 139, 140, 128, 135, 140, 142, 157, 190, 197, 230,
142, 143, 160, 185, 188, 189, 190, 191, 232, 234, 235, 236, 237, 244, 270, 273,
192, 193, 194, 195, 196, 198, 212, 216, 285, 308, 310, 312, 313, 316, 324, 339,
Subject Index 615
353, 362, 366, 394, 395, 403, 419, 430, – Deuteronomy 252, 381, 382, 408
469 – Deuteronomist 252, 407
Themistocles 186 – Exodus 4, 134, 244, 245, 251, 259, 381,
Theology 2, 3, 9, 10, 23, 30, 43, 44, 45, 407, 408, see also above, s. v.
46–48, 54, 56, 63, 65, 92, 111, 123, 135, – Genesis 476
136, 143, 148, 153, 157, 159, 171, 172, – Numbers 408
175, 188, 205, 207, 216, 217, 234, 237, – see also s. v. Hebrew Bible, law, and
238, 274, 307, 309, 331, 341, 376, 383, Index of Passages
393, 402, 403, 419, 420, 423, 424, 440, Tradition passim
442, 444, 445, 448, 450, 451, 456, 457, – oral t. 50, 53, 69, 71, 72, 73, 155, 160,
461, 462 194, 204, 267, 420
– liberation t. 160 – Traditionsgeschichte 226, 296, 390
– narrative t. 234, 284 Trajan 452, 456
Theophilus 205, 399, 401, 402 Transfiguration 233, 252, 262, 290, 291,
Theopompus 54, 248 294, 302, 364, 382, 386, 388
Theseus 47 Transgression 166, 253, 255, 320, 332
Thessaly 185 Transmission 136, 141, 150, 155, 185,
Thought, thinking 63, 66, 78, 93, 103, 105, 336, 338, 348, 349, 354, 359, 414,
106, 117, 131, 145, 147, 151, 153, 156, 418, 419, 420, 424, 426, 428, 471,
159, 204, 207, 212, 227, 237, 246, 247, 472, 473
259, 261, 264, 265, 267, 269, 279, 283, Trauma 255, 349, 430
289, 301, 314, 319, 332, 335, 368, 371, Travel 103, 191, 192, 194, 195, 196, 217,
378, 402, 405, 406, 428, 429, 431, 434, 385, 386, 388, 407, 452, 457, 458
438, 440, 442, 448, 461, 475, 477, 478, 484 – t. narrative 6, 39, 244, 381–96
– ἔννοια 131 – t. notice(s), Reisenotiz(en) 142, 386,
– idea 4, 19, 57, 63, 71, 85, 98, 102, 110, 387, 388, 389, 395
111, 131, 139, 145, 148, 149, 150, 151, Truth 28, 37, 84, 90–91, 113, 117, 128,
152, 153, 156, 157, 159, 161, 170, 174, 131, 132, 133, 135, 140, 141, 142, 247,
175, 286, 311, 317, 345–46, 347, 351, 283, 284, 291, 303, 304, 324, 344, 346,
352, 353, 356, 368, 397, 403, 406, 411, 371, 372, 373, 419, 422, 428, 429, 433,
475, 477, 478, 479, 484 435, 436, 439, 440, 458, 468, 469, 470,
Throne 210, 264, 319, 375, 409 479
Thucydides 19, 84, 249, 250, 450, see also Type 3, 4, 14, 19, 20, 22, 23, 24, 79, 86,
Index of Passages, s. v. 87, 91, 92, 96, 101, 102, 104, 106, 108,
Tiberias 361, 469 109, 120, 147, 148, 161, 166, 182, 184,
Tiberius 301, 320 185, 186, 192, 193, 196, 197, 199, 205,
Tithing 366, 367, 368, 452 243, 246, 256, 277, 285, 297, 299, 309,
Titus (emperor) 209, 320, 325, 330, 331 310, 316, 354, 359, 372, 375, 398, 400,
– arch of Titus 209 402, 403, 405, 409, 412, 413, 427, 442,
Theon of Alexandria 248 450, 483
Tomb, grave 5, 127, 128, 179, 185, 213, – archet. 133, 151, 429, 435, 438
217, 219, 220, 224, 225, 228, 229, 231, – protot. 80, 85, 86, 87, 88, 103, 104, 105,
232, 235, 236, 237, 239, 240, 240–42, 108, 109, 118, 455
275, 292, 293–94, 296, 301, 327, 331, – stereot. 87, 167, 405
333, 374, 439, 449, 476, 479, 482, 482, – typology 32, 62, 88, 180, 216, 230, 311,
483, 484 364, 422, 456
Torah, Pentateuch 169, 251, 257, 262, 264, Tyranny 301, 303, 312, 313, 314, 315, 323,
363, 364, 367, 374, 375, 377, 430, 431, 432 331, 405
616 Subject Index
Unbelief 125, 134, 174, 234, 237, 284, 441, – vineyard 216, 375, 376
455 Vinegar 290
– ἀπιστία 126, 134 Violence 232, 234, 255, 270, 287, 309, 310,
Understanding 1, 4, 5, 9, 11, 13, 15, 18, 311, 316, 317, 319, 322, 352, 388, 468
20, 21, 37, 38, 40, 47, 54, 57, 58, 64, 66, Virgil 271
70, 72, 73, 74, 75, 76, 80, 81, 82, 85, 87, Virtue 47, 107, 186, 196, 300, 372, 405,
96, 97, 99, 101, 104, 111, 113, 115, 116, 412, 414
117–21, 123, 130, 131, 135, 136, 141, Visuality 161, 166, 201, 217, 230, 281, 295,
143, 145, 149, 152, 155, 156, 157, 158, 336, 348, 481
159, 160, 166, 167, 168, 169, 170, 172, Vitellius 320–21
173, 174, 175, 176, 182, 185, 187, 189, Voice 54, 66, 71, 73, 130, 131, 132, 133, 134,
190, 196, 207, 209, 213, 215, 222, 224, 135, 143, 161, 199, 226, 234, 244, 245,
228, 229, 230, 231, 232, 233, 234, 235, 246, 250–52, 253, 255, 256, 257, 258,
237, 239, 240, 242, 247, 248, 250, 260, 259, 261, 262, 263, 269, 270, 301, 337,
261, 262, 265, 269, 271, 279, 282, 283, 342, 343, 344, 346, 347, 351, 352, 353,
284, 290, 291, 292, 297, 309, 314, 316, 355, 356, 429, 455, 466, 467, 468, 470
319, 323, 325, 326, 327, 328, 329, 330, – bat qol 291
332, 335, 336, 337, 339, 346, 349, 350,
351, 353, 354, 355, 359, 363, 364, 370, Waking 125, 232, 235, 280, 286
371, 372, 382, 384, 385, 386, 390, 394, Wandering 279, 404, 407
398, 399, 400, 402, 411, 412, 414, 419, War 249, 250, 433
419, 423, 424, 426, 427, 428, 429, 432, – army 312, 331
434, 436, 437, 439, 441, 442–45, 446, – battle 186, 228, 249, 300, 319, 318
449, 450, 455, 456, 459, 463, 464, 465, – centurion 209, 226, 264, 291, 331, 333,
468, 469, 470, 471, 472, 473, 475, 476, 478, 479, 480, 481
477, 479, 484 – Jewish-Roman w. 160, 179, 352, 361
Underworld 274, 312 – legion 231, 288
Unity 187, 216, 246, 258, 444, 458, see also – soldier 244, 268, 273, 285, 288, 290,
s. v. narrative 317, 318, 351, 478, 479, 480, 481
Universe 70, 154, 192, 372, 406 – Trojan w. 194
Universality 248 Washing 370, 371, 374, 422, 462, 463, 476,
– universal(s) 57, 61, 62, 101, 244, 246, see also s. v. baptism, purity
248, 338, 344, 368 Water 141, 142, 188, 226, 232, 276, 363,
– universalizing 94, 433 376, 439, 456
Upbringing 187, 194, 198, 407 – pool 461, 462, 463
Urliteratur 397 – mikveh, see s. v. purity
Utica 322, 330, 331 – well 91, 362, 363
Utility 40, 60, 69, 75, 101, 110, 114, 118, 120, Weapon 330
149, 181, 318, 337, 385, 390, 427, 437 – arrow 254
– quiver 254
Valentinus 136, 138 – spear 318
Valentinianism 136, 137 – sword 192, 254, 321, 376, 377, 392
Vatican II 43–45 Weeping 373, 482, 484
Verisimilitude 84, 93, 439 – tears 283
Vespasian 209, 319, 320, 325, 330, 331, – see also s. v. grief, lament
457 Will 72, 87, 133, 193, 198, 227, 233, 240,
Vice 186, 300, 372 255, 257, 266, 270, 314, 328, 371, 450,
Vine 279 465, 470, see also s. v. council
Subject Index 617
Willingness 255, 312, 313, 321, 341, 354, 239, 248, 252, 255, 257, 258, 265, 266,
414, 426, 458, 468 270, 314, 316, 317, 327, 335, 355, 371,
William of Ockham 61 373, 375, 376, 378, 402, 403, 406, 410,
Wind 229, 260, 410, 411 411, 432, 433, 435, 438, 441, 446, 447,
Wine 239, 290, 365 449, 450, 453, 457, 458, 463, 465, 466,
Wisdom 189, 323, 359, 364, 372, 404, 412, 470
420, 464 – cosmology 142, 227, 232, 239
– Sophia 201 – cosmos 94, 267, 271
– σοφία 210 – κόσμος 142, 210
– wisdom literature 107, 310 – worldview 373, 377
Wit 189, 286 – see also s. v. universe
Witness, testimony 74, 75, 84, 132, 140, Worship 47, 126, 137, 160, 193, 217, 255,
157, 158, 171, 173, 215, 262, 284, 291, 259, 260, 266, 326, 363, 369, 370, 403,
292, 296, 403, 409, 410, 417, 419, 421, 443, 447, 456, 465, 466, 470, see also s. v.
431, 438, 439, 447, 454, 455, 456, 463, liturgy
464, 465, 466, 470, 471, 477, 479, 480 Wrath 189, 192, 228, 234, 236, 298, 344,
– attestation 92, 95, 201, 210, 465, 469 368, 374, 476, 482
– eyew. 51, 84, 330, 338, 361, 401, 420, Writing, see s. v. composition, scribe
421, 439, 450, 451, 455, 458, 459, 480
– false w. 84, 283, 286, 371 Xenophon 54, 84, 183, 297, 304, 314–16,
Woe 286, 319, 374 317, 451, see also Index of Passages, s. v.
Woman 5, 91, 125, 127, 140, 141, 142,
192, 201, 202, 220, 224, 225, 228, 229, Yeast, leaven 260, 261
232, 235, 236, 237, 239, 240–42, 275, Yoke 134, 377
276, 279, 280, 281, 282, 291–92, 293,
294, 296, 298, 330, 376, 403, 475, 482, Zeal 434
483, 484 Zealot 460, 467
World 11, 29, 57, 59, 60, 61, 64, 65, 67, Zeno of Citium 302, 303
68, 81, 82, 84, 94, 95, 100, 106, 109, Zeno of Elea 312, 313, 324
118, 126, 138, 139, 140, 149, 160, 210, Zeus 111, 192

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Wissenschaftliche Untersuchungen

zum Neuen Testament

ISBN 978-3-16-159413-7 / eISBN 978-3-16-159414-4

© 2020 Mohr Siebeck Tübingen, Germany. www.mohrsiebeck.com

The present volume originated in a conference held at Texas Christian Univer-

Preface and Acknowledgements . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . V

David P. Moessner, Tobias Nicklas, and Robert Matthew Calhoun

Michal Beth Dinkler

Carl Johan Berglund

Justin Marc Smith

Geert Van Oyen

List of Contributors . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 487

General Bibliography . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 489

Index of References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 541

AB (AYB) Anchor (Yale) Bible

BZNW Beihefte zur Zeitschrift für die neutestamentliche Wissenschaft

OSJCB Osnabrücker Studien zur Jüdischen und Christlichen Bibel

The present collection of studies focuses on the age-old problem of character-

ethical behavior (360). John A. Darr (“Reading Luke-Acts as Scriptural History

without testing and confirming this hypothesis by examination of the Gospels’

Performance of the Gospel of Mark,” 335–56) and Tobias Nicklas (“Second-

The Question of Genre and the Gospels

It seems incredible that it is twenty-five years since my revised doctoral thesis

A. The Literary Theory of Genre

1. Genre Theory – Frow’s Handbook (2005/2015)

2. Genre in Popular Culture – Gaiman (2013)

14 See Burridge, What Are the Gospels?, 25–52 (ch. 2).

Gaiman confesses, “and when I understood that, I understood so much more – it

17 Gaiman, “Pornography of Genre,” 43.

B. Gospel Scholarship and Commentaries

Walton suggests, “given the wide acceptance of Burridge’s conclusions, it is

1. Matthew’s Gospel

b. The Beginnings of Change – Garland, Stanton, and Carter

c. Change of Consensus – Keener (1997, 1999, 2009)

d. Change of Consensus Accepted – Witherington

e. Change of Consensus Resisted – Luz

f. Further Traditional Assumptions – France, Turner, and Evans

at which point he footnotes myself, Frickenschmidt, Guelich, Nolland, Shuler,

g. Change of Consensus Assumed – McKnight

2. Mark’s Gospel

modal adjectives like “eschatological” or “historical” or even “biographical” onto

b. The Tide Starts to Turn – France, Witherington, et al.

61 Witherington, Gospel of Mark, 3 and nn. 10–11.

c. The New Consensus – Biography (2008–2018)

d. A Challenge from Historiography – Becker

3. Luke’s Gospel

b. Continuing Debate – Mode and Genre

c. More Recent Beginning Acceptance of the Biographical Genre of Luke?

4. John’s Gospel

Jesus is ancient biography,” and drawing attention specifically to our “distinction

b. Further Implications for John’s Audience, Historicity, and Characterization

c. Resistance to Genre Theory – Ashton and Reynolds (2010–2014)

127 R. Williams, “Foreword,” to Burridge, John, 2nd ed., 5.

d. Further Theory and Acceptance (2015–2017)

C. Other Areas of Gospel Scholarship

1. Gospel Genre and Audience

b. Klink, Vine, and the Audience of the Gospels (2005–2014)

would not be hermeneutically relevant.”150 He then gives an extensive analysis

150 Bauckham, “Is There Patristic Counter-Evidence?,” 69 (emphasis original).

c. Smith and Why Βίος? (2015)

2. The Genre of Acts

156 Vine, Audience of Matthew, 204–7.

ject’s followers,160 or as a βίος of the church, in the manner of Dicaearchus’ bio-

Preface and Acknowledgements . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . V

David P. Moessner, Tobias Nicklas, and Robert Matthew Calhoun

List of Contributors . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 487

General Bibliography . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 489

Index of References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 541

ethical behavior (360). John A. Darr (“Reading Luke-Acts as Scriptural History

b. The Tide Starts to Turn – France, Witherington, et al.

127 R. Williams, “Foreword,” to Burridge, John, 2nd ed., 5.

Sean A. Adams’s thesis, published in the SNTS Monograph Series,180 begins by

www.premierchristianradio.com/Shows/Saturday/ Unbelievable/Episodes/ Unbelievable-Why-

58 E. Mroczek, The Literary Imagination in Jewish Antiquity (Oxford: Oxford University

Literary theorist Thomas O. Beebee proposes the following taxonomy to de-

38 C. Bennema, A Theory of Character in New Testament Narrative (Minneapolis: Fortress,