Abstract
The case is argued sensitively and inclusively, accepting elements of other, including literary analyses, preferring a cautious balance of ‘both-and’ rather than ‘either-or’. A century’s exploration of oral tradition is briefly surveyed, and religious and postmodern insistence on remaining with ‘the text’ are courteously discussed, noting how varied in fact are the ancient texts of Mark available to us. Rather than authorial then textual control, it is urged, we have to allow for fresh interactive performances, with an occasional laboriously transcribed performance for a patron (or for a traveller without time to learn the script?). Our Greek Mark will then have emerged in a fully bilingual community, where translation is instinctive and natural, retaining short units marked by parataxis and paraphrastic repetition, often making up vivid scenes with strong cultural resonances (exorcism, controversy, healing, voice from heaven, heavenly vision), comprising a tale of a prophet’s agon, raising questions and possibilities that invite audience response.
This reader was still left with a number of questions. For instance, there is no help towards imagining the body language of performance, nor any note of the few earlier Greek traditions of Jesus preserved by Paul (nor of previous discussions of Q in performance), nor of the possible significance for the thesis of Markan intercalation. And more attention could be given to ancient understandings of the relation of words to ‘meaning’ (cf. p. 90). However, this is a very valuable as well as succinct contribution to an important debate, and warmly welcomed.