Was gMark written to be ritual, or even acted as a play

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dbz
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Was gMark written to be ritual, or even acted as a play

Post by dbz »

In the Gospel of Mark the Jesus figure is most unlike any ordinary human figure in ancient (or modern) literature. He is a human, of course, with brothers and sisters and a mother, and he eats and drinks. But he is unlike any other figure in works that we know to be ancient biographies or histories. He is presented to us “cold”, that is, without us having any knowledge of who the biographer is or why he is even writing about him. Without any explanation of how the author came to know anything about his life, he is depicted as engaging in conversations and activities with spirit beings both in heaven and on earth. He calls and mere mortals drop all their livelihoods in a moment and obey. He reads peoples minds and hearts. He exercises God’s prerogative to forgive sins and rules the physical elements. He talks in mysteries so none can understand, and though he explains all his mysterious messages to his disciples, even they don’t truly believe. Even his disciples are far from genuine human beings: they walk as if mesmerized into obedience to follow him at his call; they are unrealistically stupid in not recognizing his power despite seeing it demonstrated time and again; they, along with the crowds in the narrative, come and go as the author needs them, not as per any realistic plot device.

In other words, Jesus is depicted in the earliest gospel as a figure of a human but certainly something trans-human. The story-line is absurd — quite against the grain of the way real people really are and how real people really respond — if read “realistically”. But if read as ciphers, or symbols, or personifications, or mouthpieces for some particular set of beliefs and doctrines, if read as a parable or symbolically, the story makes perfect sense.
—Neil Godfrey

[Something different about Mark]

This brings me back to an important difference between Mark’s use of Scripture and how the other evangelists deployed it.

As Nathanael Vette writes, Mark does not
. . . introduce a schema of prophetic-fulfilment for the Passion Narrative as a whole. Elsewhere in the Gospel, there are isolated instances where certain events correspond to, or happen in fulfilment of, the Jewish scriptures. [Mk 1:2-3; 7:6-7; 9:12-13]. But Mark lacks the explicit interpretive schema one finds in the editorial comments of Matthew (1:22; 2:17,23:4:14; 8:17; 12:17; 13:35; 21:4; 27:9) and John (12:16, 38; 15:25; 18:9; 19:24, 36). For the most part, the concept of prophetic-fulfilment is undeveloped in Mark. (Vette, 165.)
Other aspects (e.g. motivation of actions and words, explanatory background) of Mark’s narrative also appear undeveloped and the best reason I have found to explain such characteristics in Mark is given by Nicole Duran in Power of Disorder: Ritual Elements in Mark’s Passion Narrative. Mark is writing not only a “scripturalized narrative” but, unlike the other evangelists, he is also writing a “ritualized narrative”.

The features of the Gospel of Mark that have led some readers to imagine it was written to be performed, or even acted as a play, are the same features that Duran identifies as those of ritual. (Theatre is a secular counterpart of ritual.)
  • Godfrey, Neil (5 August 2022). "How (and Why) Jewish Scriptures are used in Mark's Passion Narrative — a review of Writing with Scripture, part 9". Vridar. NOW BOLDED

NB.: Kok (2015). “Why Did the Gospel of Mark Survive?”. bibleinterp.arizona.edu.
David C. Sim infers that the author of Matthew intended to compose a new and improved life of Jesus, rendering the former biography of Jesus, Mark, redundant (2011, 178-83). The author of Luke, too, stresses how his orderly account supersedes the many previous attempts (Luke 1:1-4). It is surprising that Mark was preserved even after Matthew and Luke took over most of its content!
Paul the Uncertain
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Re: Was gMark written to be ritual, or even acted as a play

Post by Paul the Uncertain »

It is generally accepted that ancient writing was typically experienced by being read aloud. Just that much imparts a dimension of performance to any ancient lengthy ancient writing, and so to Mark. Except for trained court reporters reading a portion of another's testimony into a formal trial record, it is nearly impossible for ordinary people to read aloud anything of length and avoid "performing" it.

Beyond that, and specific to Mark, are features suggestive of a work meant to be experienced as a whole. The most conspicuous of these is the heavy intratextuality displayed throughout the performance. That is, a full appreciation of what is happening now often depends on something that has happened in an otherwise unrelated previous passage.

A modest example is at verse 6:56, where touching Jesus's garments is mentioned as sufficient to accomplish healing on a high-volume basis. This reflects an innovation introduced by the bleeding woman back at 5:28, with strong textual reinforcement that this is something new for the ministry. To understand her innovation, the audience needs already to understand the problem of crowds seeking healing by pressing on Jesus's person, for instance at 3:10, which image is repeated to furnish the context for the woman's action in 5:28.

(Exercise: Verse 3:9 tells us that Jesus avoided the press of 3:10 by preaching from onboard a boat. Is that the first time Jesus used a boat for that purpose? Is there anything new about Jesus's use of the boat in 3:9?)

There are further craft elements which show a writer who manipulates the flow of information with the effect of arousing the audience's interest in the progress of the story moment to moment. A famous example of this is the attempted rescue - house divided "sandwich" which dominates the tail end of chapter 3, and which has been discussed here in the forum many times.

A bit of "experimental archeology" by the late Alec McCowen demonstrates that a solo performance of Mark passes as satisfying theater even today. Others have followed his lead.

Unlike typical theater pieces, however, Mark allows for a flexible cast size. I've adapted it for two players, and one of these days I'll finish a four player version. As an exercise, I once broke out the text to its full specification: about sixty distinct speaking parts (including a narrator part) and another forty special business parts (e.g. Jairus's daughter).

Everything mentioned so far contemplates the audience experiencing the black letter text verbatim. Mark can also be interpreted (= recognized for what it is) as a treatment (that is, not a performance script, but rather a detailed prose description of a possible performance). Sure enough, there are modern theater pieces which develop a performance by however many players following what Mark describes (as opposed to presenting the very words aloud).

Bottom line: Whatever "Mark" had in mind when he or they wrote it, what they wrote is a theatrical piece. I would hesitate to describe it as a ritual piece, since ritual connotes precisely prescribed action, which is the antithesis of a typical stage script (where each production company enjoys great flexibility in what ends up onstage, or nowadays on screen).
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