Has “Social Memory” Replaced Form and Redaction Criticism?

Anthony Le Donne has a summary about the various scholars engaging memory studies in historical Jesus research, especially helpful for those of us who have not kept up with all the literature on this, and Michael Bird has created the new theme song :)  There is much I like about this approach including that it is more interdisciplinary in nature, it is a useful reminder that there is no access to the “historical Jesus” apart from the “Jesus remembered” (cf. James Dunn) by his earliest followers, and it replaces some of the more dubious aspects of form criticism (e.g., one can remove the inauthentic bits based on deviations from “pure forms” or laws on the growth of the tradition or secondary “Hellenistic” layers over primitive “Palestinian” material).

However, is some of the research on memory really so different from the insights of the form critics?  Has memory research refuted, or might it even vindicate, some of the following conclusions:  1) memory is both retentive (how Jesus was) and reconstructive (what Jesus came to mean for the community doing the remembering), 2) memory is shaped according to narrative conventions (e.g, a Pronouncement story, a parable, a miracle story), 3) the selection and shaping of memory happens in a specific social context (i.e. the Sitz im Leben or “setting in life”), 4) Mark puts its own stamp on the memories through the selection and arrangement of them in retelling the Jesus story (e.g., linking individual stories together with loose connectors such as “and immediately” or using the sandwich technique to have two independent stories mutually interpet each other), and 5) some of the diversity in the Gospel tradition may be based on different forms of Jesus’ saying (e.g., the Lord’s Prayer) or ways of retelling certain stories but that others may be intentional redactional changes of Mark or other sources by the Gospels of Matthew/Luke/Thomas/Peter, etc.  I can accept criticism of the confidence in the “criteria of authenticity” to weed out “authentic” from “inauthentic” material and admit we can’t get behind the earliest memories of Jesus (sage, apocalyptic prophet, Torah teacher, healer/exorcist, messianic claimant), but is it not the task of historians to then try to sort out which memories may be earlier and which were developing ways of thinking about Jesus and might some criteria help that task.  So if something is independently multiply attested itpresumably must be older than both sources or if it seems to go “against the grain“ of developing theological views than it may be the survival of an earlier memory not fully suppressed, but if something clearly stands out from the rest of the Jesus’ tradition while supporting a distinctive theme of an evangelist then it may be later or “redactional”)?  Anyways, all the recent discussion about memory is fascinating so it would be interesting to open this up to further dialogue in the comments.

Distinctive Features of Mark Part IV: Markan Hyperbolic Language

Another key feature of Mark is its use of literary exaggeration.  I have already discussed the example of “and immediately” which seems to magnify the excitement of Mark’s fast-paced narrative.  In this post I want to look at some other Markan exaggerations such as the use of “all” (πᾶς) which, would be unrealistic if taken literally, but seem to be deliberate hyperbole for rhetorical effect.  To give a few examples:

“And there went out to him [John the Baptist] all the country of Judea, and all the people of  Jerusalem; and they were baptized by him in the river Jordan, confessing their sins” (Mark 1:5)

• It is unlikely that the entire of Judea and city of Jerusalem was depopulated to go out to get baptized by John, but it does serve to magnify the importance of what John was doing.  It is also interesting how Mark reverses the normal values attached to geographical spaces like Jerusalem (centre, urban, civilization) and the wilderness (chaos, liminal) (see Eric C. Stewart, Gathered Around Jesus:  An Alternative Spatial Practice in the Gospel of Mark)

“And at once his fame spread everywhere throughout all the surrounding region of Galilee… That evening, at sundown, they brought to him all who were sick or possessed with demons.  And the whole city was gathered together about the door…  And he said to them, “Let us go on to the next towns, that I may preach there also; for that is why I came out.”  And he went throughout all Galilee, preaching in their synagogues and casting out demons” (1:28, 32-33, 38-39)

• Mark depicts one very busy day in Capernaum!  Again, it seems to magnify the importance of Jesus as news spreads immediately throughout Galilee and Jesus heals all the sick or those seeking exorcisms.  Jesus is also described as travelling throughout the “towns” of Galilee and healing in their local assemblies (“synagogues”), though conspicuously the Markan Jesus is never located in the two major urban centres of Sephoris and Tiberius.  This again may reverse the elite values attached to these places as these urban centres are seen as exploitive and parasitic on village life.

“For the Pharisees, and all the Jews, do not eat unless they wash their hands, observing the tradition of the elders” (7:3)

• Not all of the first-century Jews adopted the extra-biblical purity halakhah of the Pharisees.  However, contrary to some scholarship Mark is not ignorant about the purity system (see James Crossley, “Halakah and Mark 7.4 : ‘…and beds’“; ”Halakah and Mark 7.3: ‘with the hand in the shape of a fist’“) and it must be remembered that the evangelist is describing the practice polemically rather than objectively.  The Epistle of Aristeas 305-6 uses a similar generalization of “all” when seeking to explain the Jewish practice of handwashing to a non-Jewish readership.

“he entered the temple and began to drive out those who sold and those who bought in the temple, and he overturned the tables of the money-changers and the seats of those who sold pigeons; and he would not allow any one to carry anything through the temple…  the chief priests and the scribes heard it and sought a way to destroy him; for they feared him, because all the multitude was astonished at his teaching” (11:16, 18)

• I discussed in a past post why I think the historical Jesus likely uttered a threat against the Temple with a symbolic gesture of overturning a few tables, but Mark clearly exaggeratees the scene in stressing Jesus’ unrivalled authority.  If Jesus was able to shut down the entire cult of the massive Temple complex in the midst of the busy time of Passover when pilgrims flooded the city, there is no chance that he would not immediately have been taken into custody or killed.

Distinctive Features of Mark Part III: Odd Explanatory Asides with “Gar”

One thing that Mark is fond of is the use is gar-clauses in making explanatory asides in the narrative (21 times).  Just by typing “conjunction gar in Mark” into a google search engine, I found some discussion of the Greek conjunction gar (for) at the online Biblical Greek Forum.  Many of Mark’s gar-clauses seem oddly placed and even potentially embarrassing, which is why Matthew and Luke often edit them out.  To give a few examples from the NRSV:

“he [Jesus] saw Simon and his brother Andrew casting a net into the lake—for they were fishermen” (Mark 1:16)

• This added explanation may be a little redundant.

“And immediately the girl got up and walked (she was twelve  years of age)” (Mark 5:42; the english translation here somewhat masks it by leaving the gar untranslated and interpreting this as a parenthetical aside)

• What does the girl’s age have to do with the fact that Jesus raised her from the dead?

“Then he got into the boat with them and the wind ceased. And they were utterly astounded, for they did not understand about the loaves, but their hearts were hardened” (Mark 6:52)

• Unlike the parallel in Matthew where the disciples respond to Jesus walking on water by paying obeisance to the Son of God, Mark’s version has the troubling implications that the disciples hearts are heardened.  It is also odd that the gar-clause explains their reaction here based on their earlier ignorance of Jesus’ feeding miracle.

“When he [Jesus] came to it [the fig tree], he found nothing but leaves, for it was not the season for figs” (Mark 11:13)

• Mark’s gar-clause explains why Jesus did not find any fruit on the tree, but then lashing out and cursing the tree hardly seems fair.

All these instances could be taken as examples of Mark’s rough style, but they may also serve a useful purpose for the narrator.  In the last post, we saw how Mark’s description of the girl as 12 (like the hemorrhaging woman suffering for 12 years) may be key to the symbolism of the story and that the cursing of the fig tree is linked to the judgment on the Temple.  A well-known article that calls attention to the odd gar-clauses and seeks a deeper meaning behind them is C.H. Bird, “Some Gar Clauses in St. Mark’s Gospel” JTS 4 (1953): 171-187.  In his excellent work on reader-response criticism and Mark, Robert Fowler also offers an explanation starting on page 92 that you can access on google preview from his book Let the Reader Understand.

Distinctive Features of Mark Part II: Markan Sandwiches

Mark often interrupts one story by seemingly inserting another unrelated story, following a pattern A1 (story one) – B (new story) – A2 (completion of story one), but in a way that they seem to mutually interpret one another.  This technique of intercalation, or Markan sandwiches, has been identified most prominently at Mark 3:20–35; 5:21–43; 6:7–30; 11:12–22; 14:1–11; 14:1-11, 14:53-72 (some other bloggers have listed further examples here, here, here).  So, for instance, the story of Jesus raising the 12 year old (cf. 5:42) daughter of the synagogue ruler Jairus is interrupted by the healing of the woman suffering from haemorrhages for 12 years, so Mark may want to teach something about faith by juxtaposing these two stories together and the female characters may also symbolize the restoration of Israel (e.g., 12 tribes).  The framing of Jesus prophetic denouncement in the Temple with the cursing of the fig-tree and its subsequent withering forms a commentary on what will happen to the fruitless Temple (11:12-22).  The efforts of Jesus’ own kin (probably what Mark intends with the Greek hoi par autou) to restrain him and Jesus’ redefinition of his family as those who do God’s will frames the section on blasphemy of the Holy Spirit, so rejecting Jesus as crazy is equivalent to the scribes accusation that he is possessed by Beelzebub.  If you are interested in further details, see online James R. Edwards, Markan Sandwiches: The Significance of Interpolations in Markan Narratives” Novum Testamentum 31 (1989): 193-216.

Distinctive Features of Mark’s Gospel Part I

Over the next few posts I want to look at some of the distinctive features of Mark’s story-telling.  Some might classify these as redactional, and they could very well be, but since we do not have Mark’s sources then we cannot be certain.  An example is εὐθύς (immediately) or  καὶ εὐθὺς (and immediately) which I was originally tempted to name my blog before I discovered another blog with this title.  To see how often this is found in Mark and masked in some English translations, I have selected “Young’s Literal Translation” from www.biblegateway.com of Mark 1:16-45

And, walking by the sea of Galilee, he saw Simon, and Andrew his brother, casting a drag into the sea, for they were fishers,and Jesus said to them, `Come ye after me, and I shall make you to become fishers of men;’and immediately, having left their nets, they followed him.  And having gone on thence a little, he saw James of Zebedee, and John his brother, and they were in the boat refitting the nets,and immediately he called them, and, having left their father Zebedee in the boat with the hired servants, they went away after him.  And they go on to Capernaum, and immediately, on the sabbaths, having gone into the synagogue, he was teaching, and they were astonished at his teaching, for he was teaching them as having authority, and not as the scribes.   And there was in their synagogue a man with an unclean spirit, and he cried out,saying, `Away! what — to us and to thee, Jesus the Nazarene? thou didst come to destroy us; I have known thee who thou art — the Holy One of God.’  And Jesus rebuked him, saying, `Be silenced, and come forth out of him,’and the unclean spirit having torn him, and having cried with a great voice, came forth out of him,and they were all amazed, so as to reason among themselves, saying, `What is this? what new teaching [is] this? that with authority also the unclean spirits he commandeth, and they obey him!’  And the fame of him went forth immediately to all the region, round about, of Galilee.  And immediately, having come forth out of the synagogue, they went to the house of Simon and Andrew, with James and John,and the mother-in-law of Simon was lying fevered, and immediately they tell him about her,and having come near, he raised her up, having laid hold of her hand, and the fever left her immediately, and she was ministering to them.  And evening having come, when the sun did set, they brought unto him all who were ill, and who were demoniacs, and the whole city was gathered together near the door,and he healed many who were ill of manifold diseases, and many demons he cast forth, and was not suffering the demons to speak, because they knew him.  And very early, it being yet night, having risen, he went forth, and went away to a desert place, and was there praying;and Simon and those with him went in quest of him,and having found him, they say to him, — `All do seek thee;’and he saith to them, `We may go to the next towns, that there also I may preach, for for this I came forth.’  And he was preaching in their synagogues, in all Galilee, and is casting out the demons,and there doth come to him a leper, calling on him, and kneeling to him, and saying to him — `If thou mayest will, thou art able to cleanse me.’  And Jesus having been moved with compassion, having stretched forth the hand, touched him, and saith to him, `I will; be thou cleansed;’and he having spoken, immediately the leprosy went away from him, and he was cleansed.  And having sternly charged him, immediately he put him forth,and saith to him, `See thou mayest say nothing to any one, but go away, thyself shew to the priest, and bring near for thy cleansing the things Moses directed, for a testimony to them.’  And he, having gone forth, began to proclaim much, and to spread abroad the thing, so that no more he was able openly to enter into the city, but he was without in desert places, and they were coming unto him from every quarter.

By writing this way Mark may wish to heighten the dramatic action right from the start of Jesus’ ministry or it may be an indication of the rough style of the evangelist that will be refined by successors such as Matthew and Luke.  A useful article online that cautions against overreading Mark’s usage and that it may at times just function as a conjuction is by Rodney Decker, “Temporal Deixis of the Greek Verb in the Gospel of Mark with Reference to Verbal Aspect“

The Reception of Mark by Luke: The Great Omission?

One way to ask what the author of Luke-Acts thought of the gospel of Mark would be to look carefully at the Lukan prologue in 1:1-4.  The question might be how did Luke compare to the “many” who had already attempted or undertaken to write an account, especially with Luke’s stated goal to write for his patron Theophilus in order.  Another route might be similar to Sim’s study of Matthew’s redaction of Mark.  On this latter point, I want to look at what has come to be known as the Great Lukan Omission of Mark 6:45-8:26.  Basically, after Jesus feeds the five thousand (Luke 9:10-17), Luke goes straight into Jesus’ famous question “Who do you say that I am” with Peter’s climatic confession but omits the reference to Caesarea Philippi (Luke 9:18-20).  Why do you think Luke may have missed this entire section of Mark?

• An argument for the Griesbach hypothesis that Mark was intended to conflate Matthew and Luke?
• There was a proto-Mark without Mark 6:45-8:26 that was used by Luke, while a later redactor added this section to canonical Mark?
• This section was accidently skipped over due to the phenomenon of homeoleuton (the section begins with them going to and ends with them leaving “Bethsaida”)?
• Luke had a defective copy of Mark that was accidently missing this section?
• Luke wanted to reduce doublets (this section has a second feeding narrative and second sea miracle)?
• Luke chose to restrict Jesus’ mission to Jews in Galilee (rather than Tyre, Sidon and the Decapolis)?
• Luke found some features offensive such as the comparison of the non-Jewish Syrophoenician woman to a dog, the use of saliva to heal the deaf/mute man and the blind man, the harsh depiction of the ignorance of the disciples (their hearts are hardened at 6:52 in response to the Sea miracle and at 8:17 in response to Jesus remark on the yeast of the Pharisees and Herod) or some obscure teachings (e.g. Mk 7:1-23 involves some pretty technical discussion of Jewish halakhah and purity laws in responding to the objection about eating with unwashed hands)?
• Luke wanted to omit any discussion of clean and unclean (Mark 7) until Peter’s vision in Acts 10?
• Other explanations?

For an introduction to this issue one can check out the options laid out in commentaries such as Joseph Fitzmyer’s Luke I-IX for Anchor Bible (for commentaries available on google preview that comment on the issue see R.H. Stein, LT Johnson) or for various online views from scholars or laypersons at Crosstalk: Historical Jesus and Xtian Origins, Synoptic L Archive or Bernard’s (frequent commentor here) website.

The Reception of Mark by Matthew

I have finally gotten around to reading the article by David C. Sim, “Matthew’s Use of Mark: Did Matthew Intend to Supplement or to Replace His Primary Source?” NTS 57 (2011): 176 – 192 (thanks to Ed Babinsky for mentioning the article in my post here and emailing it to me a while back).  While aspects of Sim’s study may be debated (was Mark a Paulinist and was Matthew anti-Pauline?), overall I found it a persuasive case that by reproducing most of Mark’s content while cleaning up Mark’s grammar and style, revising and enlarging it with a wealth of new material from other sources (the double tradition ["Q"], special Matthean materials) and editing out what has become theologically problematic the evangelist behind Matthew intended to replace Mark’s gospel (see especially page 178-181).  Sim writes (p. 183),

Why would he want his community to read of the healing of the blind man at Bethsaida in Mark 8:22-26 when he himself thought it unworthy of inclusion? Why would he be content to have his readers learn that Jesus’ power was limited in Mark 6:5 when he had rewritten that Marcan text in Matt 13:58 so as not to convey that impression?  Why would he want his intended readers to learn from Mark 3:19b-21 that the family of Jesus’ believed he was demon-possessed after he himself deemed it so offensive that he took considerable pains to ensure that it did not appear in his parallel account? Why would Matthew think it desirable for his community to be exposed to Mark’s statment in Mark 7:19b that Jesus declared all foods clean when he himself clearly opposed this view and omitted the offending words, and elsewhere depicted Jesus as a Law-observant Jew? Finally, why would the evangelist desire that his readers continue to read Mark when it offered them so little interms of their immediate and pressing needs, such as their conflict with Formative Judaism?

[*for Sim Mk 8:22-26 was omitted due to the use of spittle as a healing agent, the conflict with formative Judaism is the intensification of polemic against scribes & Pharisees in Matt 23, and Mk 7:19b points to Mark as a Paulinist but Sim doesn't deal with Crossley's reinterpretation of all foods already permitted by Torah as clean i.e. unwashed hands can't render eater unclean]

Sim points out that Matthew’s attitude conforms with Luke’s slightly critical view of his sources in the prologue (Lk 1:1-4), John’s working with a completely different tradition from Mark, and the mixed reception of Mark in the 2nd century (pp. 188-92).   The question is, if the apostle Peter had not been attached to Mark in patristic tradition, would we be reading Mark today?

Introducing Redaction Criticism

The methodological break-through after form criticism was Redaktionsgeschichte (redaction history) or redaction criticism.  While building on form critical insights, it reaction to the minimalistic view of the evangelists as editors collecting traditions like pearls on a string.   Morna Hooker has a memorable line in rebuttal: “It will not, I hope, be regarded as a sexist remark if I suggest that only a man could have used the phrase ‘like pearls on a string’ to suggest a haphazard arrangement of material.  Any woman would have spotted the flaw at once in the analogy:  pearls need to be carefully selected and graded.  And gradually it has dawned on New Testament scholars that this is precisely what the evangelists have done with their material” (The Message of Mark [1983], p. 3).  Redaction critics treat the evangelists as authors and theologians in their own right and seek their distinct contribution to the pre-gospel traditions (as largely determined from a form critical analysis).  

Though anticipated by W. Wrede or R.H. Lightfoot, it was Gunther Bornkamm (Tradition & Interpretation in Matthew [1948]), Hans Conzelmann (The Theology of St. Luke, [1954]) and Willi Marxsen (Mark the Evangelist [1956]) who really opened the floodgates.  However, it may be easier to spot Matthew or Luke’s redactional hand based on how they treat Mark (but see the debate on whether this is the case by James McGrath and Rafael Rodriguez here, here, here, here, here, here, here), but it is much more difficult with Mark because the sources are no longer extant.  Premier evangelical scholar Robert Stein’s article “What is Redaktionsgeschicht” JBL 88.1 (1969): 45-56 (Courtesy of Biblical Studies.org) notes what redaction critics look for when they sift Mark’s editorial contribution from pre-Markan sources:  seams (remember form criticism assumes the traditions were handed down as independent units which Mark attached together artificially), interpretative comments, summaries, modification of material, selection of material, omission of material, arrangement of material, introduction (Mark’s prologue), conclusion (original ending at 16:1-8), vocabulary and christological titles (p. 53).

Update: For a major critique of the redactional critical method, see C. Clifton Black, The Disciples according to Mark: Markan Redaction in Current Debate (JSNTS 27; Sheffield: JSOT Press; Sheffield Academic Press, 1989).