Kata Markon

["Sid Martin" <smartin AT webzone.net>]

May I suggest that the burden of proof is on those who would assert the historicity of any narrative and that the Gospel of Mark is no exception.  To assume that a literary work is historical simply because it exhibits a narrative format might well be termed "naive historicism."  Nothing that I know of justifies the assumption that the author of a narrative means to assert that the "events" narrated actually occurred.  All stories take the form of saying that a certain character went here and did this and then went there and said that.  That does not even imply that the author means to say that any such thing ever happened, let alone that the assertion is historically accurate. 

 

Certainly, stories about Jesus are no different.  The so-called "apocryphal" gospels are no less narrative in format than the canonical gospels, yet no one takes the sayings and doings of the Jesus character therein described seriously as fact.  Religious fiction in general, and Christian fiction in particular, was quite typical of the age.  To carve out an exception for the literary works which received official sanction is an act of faith, nothing more.  If anyone would assert an historiographic intention on Mark's part, let them prove it.  Failing that, we are not entitled to take the Markan narrative as even an attempt to write history.  Rather, the narrative must be studied as narrative, that is, from the standpoint of literary and not historical criticism.  That being the case, the search for narrative sources need not be limited to historical rather than literary sources, nor must the historical sources be limited to those congruent with the narrative, i.e., of the same time and place, but may quite appropriately include both biblical and nonbiblical parallels.  Of course, nothing prevents Mark from using his own imagination in fashioning his narrative.  There need not be any extraneous source at all for a given episode.  We cannot assume that Mark was less creative than any other narrator, nor may we allow theological presuppositions to enter into our analysis of Mark's Gospel as a literary work.

 

Sid Martin

Tulsa, OK