Kata Markon

["George Young" <gwyoung AT morgan.ucs.mun.ca>]

While I have not fully read Garrett's book, my interest (like others') was
perked by the review article in JBL.  However, after perusing Garrett's book
(which, by the way, is endowed with many fancy excerpts from various
scholars on the back cover), I couldn't help asking myself just what "new
direction" Garrett's book takes its reader!  The testing motif (as Garrett
documents) is ubiquitous throughout the Old Testament and inter-testamental
literature.  But Garrett seems to argue as if this is where the testing
motif begins AND ends.  What seems to be lacking is a full discussion of the
testing motif in Greco-Roman literature (particularly the Greek 'novel').
This becomes all the more important when one considers that, with respect to
provenance and all the implications that go along with this, Mark is in all
probability a 'ROMAN' gospel.  Garrett ASSUMES a Palestinian provenance, and
this I suspect is the underlying foundation to her book, but she provides
little (or nothing?) in the way to support this assumption.  Could this
undermine her book's thesis?

George W. Young, PhD
Assistant Professor of Biblical Studies
Queen's College Faculty of Theology
210 Prince Philip Drive
St. John's  NF
CANADA   A1B 3R6
Tel. (709) 753-0116
Fax. (709) 753-1214
email: gwyoung AT morgan.ucs.mun.ca