Abstract
This is the second volume arising from two international conferences, one at Aarhaus University, Denmark in 2008 (published in 2011; WUNT 271), and the second at McMaster University, Canada in 2009, published here. The current collection is arranged in two sections. The first ‘Reception and Cultural Hermeneutics: Reading Mark and Matthew From the 1st to the 21st Century’ contains nine essays. The opening essay in this section draws upon genre studies in order to understand how ‘the gospel-genre has been imitated and modified in early times and how different gospel-writings hereby promote literary creativeness and serve various literary strategies or concepts of authorization’ (p. 22). Becker sees her comparative approach as not only illuminating the reception history of Mark as it was absorbed into other works such as Matthew, but it also shows how ‘the Markan Gospel could also make its own way’ (p. 33). This section contains a number of other significant essays including two on Q: Petri Luomanen, ‘From Mark and Q to Matthew: An Experiment in Evolutionary Analysis’; and Benedict Viviano, ‘Who Wrote Q? The Sayings Document (Q) as the Apostle Matthew’s Private Notebook as a Bilingual Village Scribe (Mark 2:13–17; Matt 9:9–13).’ Joseph Verheyden looks at one aspect of the Medieval reception of Matthew and Mark, ‘Reading Matthew and Mark in the Middle Ages: The Glossa Ordinaria’, (pp. 121-149).
The second section, ‘History, Meaning, and the Dynamics of Interpretation’ traces themes and forces in interpretation ‘from divergent time periods and cultural contexts’ (p. 9). The first in this section is by Adela Yarbro Collins, ‘Mark and the Hermeneutics of History Writing’, (pp. 231-244). Here Collins argues among other things that ‘Mark provides an explanation by formal argument in the explicit citation of Scripture being fulfilled in the narrative introduction to the work’ (p. 244). Stephen Westerholm, ‘Hearing the Gospels of Matthew and Mark’ (pp. 244-258), addresses ‘questions about the nature and purpose of Mark’s and Matthew’s Gospels’ (p. 244). It is argued that ‘Mark intended his readers to hear a foundational story from the past, one that at times offered accounts of behaviour to be imitated, and one in which, more frequently, they could see something of their own experience’ (p. 257). Matthew is characterized as ‘a telling of the story of the teacher that includes his teachings; and in the end, the uniqueness of the Teacher takes priority over the substance of his teachings’ (p. 258).
There are other essays in this volume that also repay careful reading and reflection. This is a rich collection, and offers helpful insights to those engaged in study of the synoptic gospels.