Kata Markon

["Jeffrey B. Gibson" <jgibson000 AT mailhost.chi.ameritech.net>]

"Stephen C. Carlson" wrote:

> I noticed that there was a book review in the latest JBL
> of Susan R. Garrett, THE TEMPTATIONS OF JESUS IN MARK'S
> GOSPEL (Eerdmans, 1998).  Since there is at least one
> expert on temptations on this list, I was wondering if
> anyone has any comments about this book.  Abraham Smith,
> the reviewer, said that this book "holds promise because
> it points Markan research in a new direction."

You may be interested to see (a slightly edited version of)  the review of
Garrett  (below) that Craig Evans asked me to write for Themeilios. Had I been
given more space (I was limited to 600 words), I would have said much more on
certain things within the book that I find dubious (her use of Bonhoeffer's
definition of what PEIRASMOS entails as an interpretative key to the 
phenomenon)
or to which, in my eyes,  not enough attention was paid (what the Israel under
testing typology as a model for Jesus' testings indicates about Jesus
ministry).  So take my "my only complaint is..." with a grain of salt.

I do not think that on the whole the book points Markan research in an 
entirely
new direction (what would that be?). But there are many things there which
could be unpacked to illuminate more fully areas that have already been
tentatively mapped out.

Yours,

Jeffrey

*********
Susan B. Garrett, The Temptations of Jesus in Mark's Gospel. Grand
Rapids/Cambridge: W.B. Eerdmans, 1998 /x + 212 pages/ $20.00/£12.99


Garrett's The Temptations of Jesus in Mark's Gospel - a wide
ranging and thoroughly engaging study of the stories in the Gospel
of Mark in which Jesus is presented as subjected to the attempts of
Satan, human adversaries, and even his own disciples to sway him
from a particular path of obedience that Mark calls "the way of the
Lord" - begins with the observation that the theme of the PEIRASMOS
(testing) of Jesus is a major feature of Mark's narrative. The theme
appears, she argues, not only in Mk. 1:12-13 (Mark's version of the
story of Jesus' wilderness testing), but also in Mk. 8:11-13 (the
story of the demand for a "sign"), Mk. 10:1-12 (the story of a
dispute with the Pharisees about divorce), Mk. 12:13-17 (the story
of the attempt of Pharisees and Herodians to entrap Jesus with a
question on the payment of the KENSON), and (in Garrett's eyes)
most importantly at Mk. 8:27-33 (the story of Peter's "confession"
at Caesarea Philippi), Mk. 14:32-42 (the story of Jesus struggle
with the will of God at Gethsemane), Mk. 14:43-15:15 (the narrative
of Jesus arrest and trials before Jewish and Roman authorities),
and Mk. 15:16-39 (the story of Jesus crucifixion) as well.

Given this, Garret concludes quite rightly that the PEIRASMOS theme might
provide
a valuable key to what Mark was "up to", that is to say, give us
insight not only into the purpose for which Mark wrote his Gospel,
but into Mark's theology (his vision of God), his Christology (his
vision of who Jesus was and is), his soteriology (how and why
Jesus' death "saves"), his ecclesiology (Mark's vision of the
church), and the nature and duties of discipleship. But how is
this theme of Jesus under PEIRASMOS to be understood? Garrett
answers this question by appealing to, and setting the Markan
"temptation" stories squarely within, what she contends were the
dominant cultural models or "interpretative conventions" about
PEIRASMOS with which Mark and his readers would have been familiar.

These are, she claims, first, the "Job model" of affliction
(explicated thoroughly in Chapter 1) wherein Satan, with God's
permission, subjects the righteous to suffering in order to
determine whether the tested one's resolve to remain faithful and
obedient to God can be broken; second, the Wisdom of Solomon model
(explored in Chapter 2) in which wicked human beings test God's
righteous one with extreme adversity or death because they have
been "blinded" by the devil or their own iniquity to the fact that
God has destined his servant for salvation and eternal life; and,
third, (cf. Chapter 3) the model found in 4 Maccabees, Pseudo
Philo, and the Epistle to the Hebrews which asserts that if the
righteous sufferer obediently endures his or her PEIRASMOS even
unto death, God will regard that death as a sacrifice which atones
for human sin.

Garrett's gambit is, I think, on the whole successful. One of its
many virtues is that it shows how taking seriously the cultural
context in which Mark was written is still the essential tool not
only for delimiting the intended meaning of Mark's text but also
for arbitrating some interpretative disputes (see, for instance
Garrett's discussion on pp. 104-115 of whether the "cup" referred
to in the Gethsemane story is a "cup of wrath" or a "cup of
suffering"). Moreover, apart from anything she does with them with
respect to Mark's "temptation" stories, Garrett's elucidations of
various first century notions concerning PEIRASMOS are valuable in
their own right as succinct yet comprehensive studies from which
scholars as well as students will learn much.

My only complaint is that one prominent biblical model of
PEIRASMOS, namely, that associated with God's wilderness testings
of Israel, is only briefly explored and never taken up in her
discussions of Mk. 14:43-15:15 and Mk. 15:16-39 where, to my mind,
it applies. Since within these texts, Mark uses such ascriptions of
Jesus as "Son of God", and "King of Israel" seemingly to identify
Jesus as the embodiment of the people of God as well as the
individual righteous Israelite, surely this model would also have
been seen by Mark and his readers as standing behind Jesus' arrest,
trial, and crucifixion testings.

********
--
Jeffrey B. Gibson
7423 N. Sheridan Road #2A
Chicago, Illinois 60626
e-mail jgibson000 AT ameritech.net