Ebook
Mark’s Gospel is much maligned for its redundancy and stylistic sloppiness. But is this indignity justified? The answer to this question hangs not only on the genre of this work but also on the life setting of its target audience. Rather than unwitting slip-ups of an inept writer, Mark’s narrative repetitions and temporal dislocations are better understood as rhetorical strategies for a didactive oral performance. There is “method” to Mark’s “madness,” and the method maps his meaning. In recent decades, some scholars have become enamored with what they see as a generic affinity between Mark’s Gospel and fictive literature, particularly ancient romance novels. Could this be the “method” behind Mark’s madness? This book offers readers an exciting and profitable journey into two story worlds that likely share a common historical-cultural setting: Mark’s “Gospel” and Chariton’s “passion of love.” Analyzing these works from the vantage point of narrative sequence, Starner identifies two contrasting worldviews: for Chariton, the world is controlled by the goddess Aphrodite who serves as a powerbroker distributing political, economic, and sociological power to agents who use that power for self-serving ends; for Mark, the world is governed by an All-Powerful God who, shockingly, operates from a posture of powerlessness, inviting (not coercing) humans to accept his lordship and urging them to adopt the self-sacrificial, service-oriented program of living that finds its quintessential expression in the historical Jesus of the Gospels.
”This book offers an intriguing study of some notable narrative
techniques in Mark’s Gospel. In contrast to modern speculations of
how Mark should have written, Starner’s observations are grounded
in ancient narration patterns. While noting parallels with
Chariton’s style, Starner is also careful to highlight some
distinctive elements in Mark’s account."
--Craig Keener
Professor of New Testament
Palmer Theological Seminary
“It is sometimes said that the Gospel of Mark is a clumsy
concatenation of stories, thrown together willy-nilly. In Kingdom
of Power, Power of Kingdom Rob Starner offers an alternative take:
Mark uses the apparent disruptions in sequence, repetitions, and
gaps in information to leverage the responses of his readers.
Starner’s argument is crisp, compelling, and critically
important--a must read for anyone who wishes to understand both
Mark and the current state of literary scholarship in biblical
studies. Mark, like Starner, is anything but clumsy."
--Jerry Camery-Hoggatt
Professor of New Testament and Narrative Theology
Vanguard University
Rob Starner is Professor of Greek and New Testament at Southwestern AG University in Waxahachie, Texas.
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