Kata Markon

["Eric Eve" <eric.eve AT harris-manchester.oxford.ac.uk>]

Harry Staiti wrote:

> I am surprized that more consideration has not been given to Mark 4.35ff
> within the structure of the two five-fold cycles of in the first section
of
> gospel.

> Mark 4.35ff makes sense in the larger chiastic structure of Mark
> FIRST CYCLE
> Stilling the Storm  (Mark 4.35-41)
>        The Gerasense Demoniac (5.1-20)
>             Jairus' Daughter (5.21-23, 35-43)
>       The woman with a hemmorage (5.25-34)
> Feeding the 5000 (6.34-44, 53)

> SECOND CYCLE
> Walking on the sea (6.45-51)
>        The Blind Man at Bethsaida (8.22-26)
>              The Syrophonecian woman's daughter (7.24-30)
>        The deaf mute (7.32-37)
> Feeding the 4000 (8.1-10)

But this structure relies on speculatively relocating The Blind Man of
Bethsaida to its putatively original setting in an equally putative
pre-canonical version of Mark. Since the story of the Blind Man fits its
Markan context so well (as a prelude to Peter's Confession, as, with the
Blind of Jericho, framing Mark's 'On the Way' section, and as, with the deaf
mute, providing a kind of commentary on the continuing blindness and
deafness of the disciples alluded to at Mk 8.18), that I find the evidence
for such a pre-canonical rearrangement less than compelling. Also, it is not
the only possibly way of dividing this material into cycles (personally, I
am more persuaded by Norman Petersen's proposal in 'The Composition of Mark
4:1-8:26', HTR 73 (1980), pp. 185-217, which sees Mark 4.1-8.26 as arranged
in a series of three cycles and two interludes; on this proposal Mk 4.35-41
is the second element of the first cycle, and corresponds to the walking on
the sea in the second cycle and the discussion in the boat in the third
cycle).

> Each story begins with a water crossing and a feeding of the multitude,
> evoking the Israelite epic of Moses and the people. Each story has at its
> center the miracle worker, evoking the miracle working power of Elijah. In
> this way, the story of Jesus is told in such a way as to include those who
> were excluded from the Israelite Epic because of their ritual purity.
Jesus
> is redefining holiness in terms of mercy, love, and compassion (Moses
> prophesied, "Be ye holy, even as I am holy" Jesus proclaimed "Be ye
merciful,
> even as your father is merciful " - Luke 3.36).

I have several problems with this. First, although it is often said that the
sea stories and feeding stories are meant to evoke the exodus tradition,
this seems to me to be far from evident. The feeding stories are much more
closely modelled on the story about Elisha feeding 100 men with 20 loaves in
2 Kings 4 than they are on the manna story in Exodus, and the two sea
stories have none of the features which regularly turn up in Jewish texts
that narrate the crossing of the Red Sea (e.g. escape from pursuit, drowning
of enemies, the striking of the water with Moses' rod, the parting of the
sea and the crossing on dry land). Moreover, neither of these sea stories in
Mark seems interested in making Jesus appear like Moses; the point seems
rather to make him appear like YHWH with his power over the wind and waves
and the powers of chaos they symbolize, and the theophany-like character of
Jesus' intent to 'pass by' the disciples. I think the feeding stories work
at several levels in Mark (in fact, I can think of too many for comfort!),
but at least one of them relates to Jesus' role as messiah and the
disciples' failure to perceive it; as I've written in a recent post on
Crosstalk I think Mark does this via an allusion to Ezekiel 34 (Mk 6.34)
which makes the feeding stories fulfilments of the promise of the ideal
shepherd-king (seen in Ezekiel 34 as both YHWH and his servant David). It
would then be something of an anti-climax if all the central story did in
each of your proposed chiastic cycles was to 'evoke the miracle working
power of Elijah' (again, in a recent post on Crosstalk I explained why I
think the nature miracles and healing miracles play different narrative
roles in Mark's Gospel, but if anyone wants me to re-post the argument in
this list I'd be happy to do so).

> IMO, any analysis of Mark 35-41 apart from this larger chiastic structure
is
> short-sighted.

To be honest, it was perhaps this closing line that provoked my response.
I'm sure my way of understanding how the stilling of the storm fits into the
structure of Mark's Gospel isn't the only reasonably plausible one around,
and I'm quite happy to read your suggestion, but I don't think it's quite
fair to describe other views as 'short-sighted'.

Best wishes,

Eric
---------------------------
Eric Eve
Harris Manchester College, Oxford
email: mailto:eric.eve AT hmc.ox.ac.uk
Home page: http://users.ox.ac.uk/~manc0049