Vorkosigan

Mark: A Commentary on His Apology for the Cross
by Robert H. Gundry. Published by Erdmans (1993) 1069 pages.

Gundry's masterwork Mark: A Commentary on His Apology for the Cross is 1069 pages of scholarship on the Gospel of Mark, reviewed. The tome manages to be an amazingly useful book despite the fact that it is simply a purblind review of the Gospel of Mark with its eye firmly fixed on the task of demonstrating that the scholars who have other-than-reactionary views of Jesus are all wrong.

Gundry announces his project in the opening paragraph of the work:

• The Gospel of Mark contains no ciphers, no hidden meanings, no sleight of hand:
  
  No messiac secret designed to mask a theologically embarrassing absence of messianism from the ministry of the historical Jesus. No messianic secret designed to mask a politically dangerous presence of messianism in his ministry. No freezing of Jesuanic tradition in writing so as to halt oral pronouncements of prophets speaking in Jesus' name. No Christology of irony that means the reverse of what it says. No back-handed slap at Davidic messianism. No covert attack on divine man Christology. No pitting of the Son of man against the Christ, the Son of David, or the Son of god.(p1)

The list goes on for two more paragraphs. Then Gundry finishes:

• None of these. Mark's meaning lies on the surface. He writes a straightforward apology for the Cross, for the shameful way in which the object of Christian faith and subject of Christian proclamation died, and hence for Jesus as the Crucified One."(p1)

There it is. NT scholars do not lack for hubris; most of us would feel obligated to at least explore the ideas enumerated therein, and show where they have gone wrong, but Gundry isn't going to waste his time on penny-ante stuff like that. He intends this as a serious work of scholarship which will simply take the story of Jesus as given, assume it is actually history, and not bother with other possibilities, except to show that they have erred. In other words, this is the apotheosis of the declarative method: It's True Because I Say It Is, to which he has added the Gundry Corollary: Other Scholars are Wrong Because I Say They Are.

The commentary itself consists of a pericope by pericope review of the Gospel of Mark. Each review offers a commentary on the pericope, and then is followed by a set of notes in 10 point font. The pericopes are always given a title that often comically reflects Gundry's confessional positions. Whereas most exegetes might title Mark 8:10-12 something like "Jesus refuses to give a sign," Gundry would never opt for anything so pedestrian, for him that is "THE POWER OF JESUS' DENYING THE REQUEST FOR A SIGN" in all caps for special emphasis. Other pericope titles include:

JESUS' POWER TO PREDICT HIS OWN FATE AND THAT OF OTHERS

THE POWER OF JESUS TO FEED FOUR THOUSAND PEOPLE WITH SEVEN LOAVES AND A FEW SMALL FISH

and of course, when the reader grows bored with the repetition of "POWER" Gundry offers us:

THE SUPERPOWER OF JESUS IN A SPECIALLY DIFFICULT EXORCISM

The real meat of the book is in the notes; this is essentially a thousand page monster written in a ten point font (!). The notes themselves attempt to cover various controversies, observations, and arguments about Mark, reviewing the Greek first, and then moving onto other issues. Although Gundry appears to be displaying vast erudition as the cites roll by, the careful reader will soon note that Gundry is primarily carrying on a conversation with conservatives like R. Pesch, J Gnilka, J. Jeremias, and his own previous works. Other authors are cited on particular topics, and liberal scholars are mentioned only for squelching. This places some limits on the usefulness of the commentary because so often Gundry is adjudicating among various conservative standpoints, rather than really exploring a multiplicity of perspectives on the gospel. An additional problem is that the work is now more than a decade old and in serious need of revision and update.

Nevertheless, there is quite a bit to be learned from this work. It is basically an encyclopedia about the Gospel of Mark, and it can be profitably treated as such. Gundry is thorough on text critical issues, and I picked up quite a few useful tidbits. For example, not being able to read Greek, I had never known that when Jesus' disciples are criticized for not washing in Mark 7:1-13, they are eating not just any food, but the magic bread that Jesus had created in the previous pericope. "The anaphoric definite article refers back to the five loaves broken by Jesus and eaten by the five thousand..."(p348). The RSV and NIV have just "food" there while the YLT and Darby have "bread" but without indicating that it is the magic bread from the previous scene. This changed my whole view of the pericope. Similarly Verse 3 in that same pericope has "clenched fist" in Greek although most translations change this to "hands." Thus it is truly said that until you read the NT in Greek, you haven't read it. Gundry is usually conscientious in bringing out a variety of views on the meaning of a given pericope, so there is a harvest to be gathered if one ignores his facile if dominating dismissals.

However, Gundry's work runs aground when he leaves the stamp collecting and ventures into actual historical analysis. When it comes to adjudicating between different points of view, he is extremely skilled at presenting himself as the forceful judge of what is right and wrong, a position he often ascribes to Jesus (who is in reality a projection of Gundry's own decisive persona). His historical analysis verges on comical, however. Because he has declared that Mark has no hidden intentions or meanings, repeated themes, such as Jesus' injunction to secrecy, are treated as unrelated events with only local explanations. For example, the injunction to secrecy to the healed leper in Mark 1 is explained as Jesus' way of getting the leper to hurry up and show himself to the priest so Jesus can get authenticated testimony of the miracle out to the public. Similarly, the injunction to secrecy in the healing of Jairus' daughter is treated as a ruse by Jesus to buy time to permit him to get away before anyone has realized he has raised the dead. Alas, Mark has already solved that problem by simply writing the crowd out of the narrative; Jesus' command has some other purpose, probably for the parents to prove to themselves that the girl is not a ghost (a double/foreshadowing for resurrection appearances at the end of Mark, which I believe are now in John 21, in which Jesus eats to prove that he is not a ghost). Gundry, in other, words, refuses to recognize that Mark has created a narrative that might have a complex structure, wider significations, and its own agenda. Thus, he spends just a hair over 3 pages at the end of the book explaining Mark's purpose, but more than 20 trying to defend the pious position that Mark's gospel was dictated to him by Peter in Rome.

To demonstrate that all is history Gundry magics up his own set of criteria, each one adjusted for the pericope in question. Were it not for the fact that Gundry is deadly serious, it would almost be possible to read them as parody of NT historical Jesus scholarship. Here are some of his arguments:
[*]

• Argument from Awkwardness: (7:1-20) in which he argues that Mark must be writing history because the grammar is awkward (but see 623 for his argument that the awkwardness there exists for emphasis). Awkwardness means, essentially, Whatever Gundry Wants.

[*]

• Argument from Apparently Useless Details (p387), in which Gundry argues that no one would have made up the circuitous route through Tyre and Sidon, and the "functionally useless" reference to Sidon.It's useless, so it must be true. Of course, it is useless because Gundry has in essence ruled out all forms of explanation that rely on interpreting the text in more robust ways than he is willing to permit.

• Argument from Opaque Reference (p403) about Dalmanutha he writes "For who would insert a regional name of opaque reference?"

• Argument from Repeated Structures (p466) "Features of 9:1 that tend toward its authenticity include the characteristically Jesuanic asseveration, "Truly I say unto you." Gundry's imagination seems not to encompass the realm of fiction.

• Argument from Uniqueness: (p520) where John's solo role in 9:38-40 is "unique" and therefore argues for historicity.

• Argument from Twoness and Fervor (p627) The twoness and anonymity of the disciples sent to fetch the colt and characteristically Jesuanic [greek] "go," support the authenticity of vv1-7.

There are many more, but the reader will have gotten the flavor of Gundry's "historical" analysis by now. Whenever Gundry wants to denigrate more complex views of Mark, he always uses the word "fabrication" with its overtone of malicious intent ("If Mark had wanted to fabricate___we would expect___")). Gundry rarely takes on the issue of OT parallels head on; instead, he slides by them, either ignoring them (in the healing of the withered hand no attempt is made to deal with the obvious parallel in the OT), or arguing (for example) that people who think Mark 11:1-7 is dependent on 1 Sam 10 are making a philosophical judgment that rejects Jesus' predictive ability, or else by using absurd arguments that boil down to rejecting parallels because the details are not the same -- much as if someone argued that Barb Wire cannot be paralleling Casablanca because, well, Barb is a woman while Rick is a man.

Gundry's naive view of history often leads him to play up some of the more absurd details in the text, often in ways that reveal its inherent implausibility. For example, he expostulates:

• Gundry (1993) notes: "Though Mark does not tell the mileage to Jerusalem (it is about two miles), the paving of the road from a point farther away than Bethpage and Bthany makes for a "red carpet" the astoundingness of whose length magnifies the VIP that Jesus is...the doubling of the pavement with straw as well as with garmnets despite the fact that since Jesus is sitting on the colt instead of walking on foot he does not need any pavement at all adds to the astoundingness of its length" (p626).

In other words, Jesus' path is lined with straw and garments for two miles! A more philosophically balanced scholar might see that as evidence that the scene as it stands is historically implausible, but for Gundry it is simply one more testimony to the glorious power of Jesus.

More serious than his amusing acceptance of historical absurdities is his attack on other scholarship. In his introduction Gundry essentially denies that the various forms of NT critical apparatus, such as form criticism or redaction criticism, are useful in studying Mark. To deny, as Gundry does, that redaction criticism is useful is to deny, essentially, that authors have identifiable styles, or that such styles can be identified. It is to negate not merely a vast mine of data in NT studies, but outside of it as well. And finally, it negates the very humanity of Mark. Everything is on the surface, says Gundry, as if Mark was a human being less complicated than Gundry himself, a sort of gospel writer in blackface, putting on a Jesus show for the evangelical crowd. The reality is, as anyone who has plumbed Mark’s complex use of the OT in his story knows, that Mark was a marvelously subtle and creative writer, well at home with different kinds of irony, and able to deploy his OT references in ways that highlight what is going on in his own story.

In the end, Gundry's vast erudition cannot quite overcome the limitations of his confessional position. Sadly, in many ways Gundry has written a book that is fertile, not because its point of view is fecund, but because it is fertilizer.

Vorkosigan

JohnHud

Thank you. I was only aware of his matthew book.

Do I infer that in your view there ARE ciphers, hidden meanings, sleights of hand in Gospel of Mark? If so how would you classify them?

JH

Toto

Amazon link (searchable)

Vorkosigan

The writer of Mark wrote his gospel as a hypertext using the Old Testament as a hypotext, in my view. Mark's hypertextuality is heavily Temple focused. For example, in Mark 3 when Junior heals the withered hand, the OT parallel takes place in the Temple. In Mark 12, where the parable opens with the man who plants a vineyard with the Tower and the vat --taken from Isaiah -- the tower in Jewish traditional interpretation of Isaiah the Tower represents the Temple, and the vat the Altar. Another example, Mark 4:11-12, when he says that he tells parables so that people won't understand, he cites Isaiah 6, where the voice that utters those words utters them in the Temple. In Mark 14, during the Sanhedrin trial, the chief priest tears his robes. There are several examples of robe-tearing in the OT, but there is one that takes place in the Temple when the true king, Joash, is revealed. The Sanhedrin meets where? -- in the Temple, of course. In Mark 2 he "erroneously" refers to Abiathar, whom David sends back to Jerusalem in 2 Sam 15-16, because Abiathar carried the Ark of the Covenant to the Temple. David of course eats the bread of presence where? -- in the Temple. I could name many more.

I could cite many others. But you get the idea. If you track Mark's OT references you'll find a steady pattern of Temple-focused hypertextuality. For me, if I run down an OT parallel and find out it is Temple-focused, then I know I am looking at the genuine thing.

Another thing that Mark does is use his cites to foreshadow future gospel events. For example, in Mark 2, again the Abiathar scene, if you read the texts he refers to, David does not actually eat the bread of presence, but refers to "five loaves." Where does that reference show up again in Mark? Similarly, later on Mark will parallel the passage in contructing an important gospel scene from 2 Sam 15-16 containing the reference to Abiathar. Can you find it?

Crossan once said that it is impossible to overestimate the creativity of Mark, and I totally to agree. Gundry's interpretation fails to do Markan creativity the proper homage it deserves, and so produced a volume that is little more than stamp-collecting of conservative interpretations of Mark.

Vorkosigan

Bede

Vork has put his finger on the key issue. Is Mark a creative genius or a second rate compiler with a poor grasp of Greek? My money is firmly on the later (the Greek is poor and the evidence of his genius is the result of spending too much time looking for non-existent meaning). But many scholars do believe that Mark is somehow this wonderfully subtle and clever writer. Why is this? Simply because it is one of the central results of research that when you spend long enough on a subject you always start talking it up. Mark has been one of the most prominent victims of this tendency and Vork a textbook proponent.

Yours

Bede

Bede's Library - faith and reason

Vorkosigan

Yes...that's right. I'm heavily invested in Mark. I did my PHD on Mark, and several papers, and conferences four or five times a year, and the two books I wrote on Mark, and of course, the extensive traveling to the Holy Land I have done....that's right. I never realized how heavily invested in Mark I am.


"One of the obstacles to viewing Mark as literature was a certain sociological bias that Mark was basically an unlettered religious enthusiast who wrote in simple Greek; this judgment is resonant of the late-nineteenth-century view of the Gospels as artless writing (Kleinliteratur)." Donahue and Harrington, Sacra Pagina Series, Mark, p12

Congratulations Bede. You're just a century behind.....

Vorkosigan

Bede

I was not expecting you to recognise your own biases but I am afraid some of your remarks suggest a classic case of the condition. Ultimately, I am just trying to rationalise why someone would think that Mark was a genius when he clearly isn't, as his poor structure, confused references and language show clearly. For me the clincher was when you said Mark's poor style might be deliberate.

Anyway, your review was good. Guthrie is doubtless right about Mark's abilities and the fact he has managed to hang on to that thought despite all the time he has spent on the Gospel is further evidence against your POV .

Yours

Bede

Bede's Library - faith and reason

Ted Hoffman

That was a brilliant piece Vork. Well-written and informative. I hope you are collecting all Markan passages that can be traced back to the OT and putting them somewhere. I have been doing some similar work myself though going beyond Mark.

Someone can be well versed with the works of Homer and literary constructions like chiastic structures but be ignorant of a culture and geography of a chossen setting.

Vorkosigan

Bede, I have supported my claims about parallels and Markan creativity with cites from scholars from all over the spectrum -- Crossan the liberal, and Donahue and Harrington, Jesuit priests and scholars. I, on the contrary, was expecting you to be able to recognize and shed your own preconceptions when confronted with evidence and argument, as I have shed mine several times already when working with this gospel.

Here is a quote from Donahue and Harrington (2002):

Intertextually the story has echoes of the Elijah and Elisha narrative cycles. The initial story of the Elijah cycle takes place in Zeraphath (1 Kgs 17:8-24), a city that "belongs to Sidon" (1 Kings 17:8; see Mark 7:24). Elijah is commanded to "rise up" (1 Kings 17:9; LXX anastethi); see Mark 7:24, where Jesus "rose up." Then he alone meets the widow of Zarephath, and a miraculous feeding takes place....Though the healing of the son is narrated in more detail than in the case of the Syrophoenician woman's daughter, the words of the prophet take the form of a simple pronouncement: "See, your son lives" (17:23); compare Mark 7:29: "the demon has already left your daughter."( p236)

Do you think they have a classic case of "the condition"? Or is it possible that perhaps you are adhering to the dead ideas of a bygone age?

Perhaps because Mark very clearly is a genius, which is why so many copied him, and prized his work.

Donahue and Harrington (2002, p16) "Mark is similar to a symphony," which is "composed" and often draws on motifs from earlier traditions and integrates different themes. (D&H are sitting on my desk at the moment).

Kee uses the term "fugue" to decribe Mark, while Dewey calls it a tapestry. Rhoads et al (Mark as Story) talks about Mark's complex artistry.

Mark's "poor structure?" Perhaps you can give me some examples, along with recent work in Mark that supports your point of view.

Vorkosigan

Intelligitimate

Perhaps Mark's poor language just reflects the fact that it is his second (third, fourth?) language. You can be a genius and still not be able to write in another language very well.