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gmark - Re: Parable of the Wicked Tenants

gmark AT lists.ibiblio.org

Subject: Kata Markon

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  • From: JFAlward AT aol.com
  • To: gmark AT franklin.oit.unc.edu
  • Subject: Re: Parable of the Wicked Tenants
  • Date: Thu, 8 Mar 2001 00:31:38 EST

In a message dated 3/7/01 8:00:57 PM Pacific Standard Time, rreid AT dbq.edu
writes:


In response to my question to the list about the antecedents of the men
beaten, struck on the head, and killed in Mark's Parable of the Wicked
Tenants (Mark 12:1-12), Robert Reid writes

Looking for allusions is central in reading
Mark, but I would argue that his narrative argument (what I have called in
my Book PREACHING MARK, his fictive argument) sometimes requires the
addition of material that otherwise leaves us puzzled.


<snip Reid's chiastic diagram>

I've found the men I've been looking for.  The man struck on the head and
killed was Zechariah son of Jehoiada the priest (2 Chronicles 24:20-21);
Jeremiah was seized, beaten and put in prison (Jeremiah 17:12-16), and Isaiah
was beaten, spit at, and mocked (Isaiah 50:4-7).  There are others, but these
men were no doubt among the ones Mark had in mind; they clearly weren't added
to his story to complete the symmetry Reid believes Mark was striving for,
but were a very necessary part of the story.  Mentioning these men make Jesus
seem more heroic:  Others went before him, and died, but he will nevertheless
let himself be killed. Luke didn't have any of the men killed, perhaps
because he wanted Jesus' sacrifice to be greater. (Luke 20:9-19)  Thus, Mark
went for heroism, Luke for greatest sacrifice.

The entirety of Mark's parable is based on the Old Testament, and was not in
the slightest guided by a desire for chiastic symmetry, in my opinion.  


Joe Alward



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