Abstract
Several scholars analyze the social dimensions of Mark’s apocalyptic discourse through socio-political or postcolonial models to identify Mark as resistance literature. Alternatively, this study uses literary analysis and metaphor theory to argue that Mark employs apocalyptic discourse for theological reasons with political implications. After evaluating representative socio-political and postcolonial interpretations and establishing the concept of apocalyptic discourse in light of the narrative’s theological and political aims, this study does two things: (1) it explains the function of Mark’s apocalyptic topoi to redefine the social concept of the family in order to explore the formation of the community that follows Jesus, and (2) it analyzes Mk 8.27–10.45 to demonstrate how apocalyptic discourse functions as social discourse in shaping that community’s identity and practice. The primary function of Mark’s apocalyptic discourse is not to combat alienation from the dominant cultural community, but from Jesus’ community as a result of misunderstanding and unbelief.
Introduction
Very often written discourse is both descriptive and prescriptive. That is, texts reveal the author’s point of view about both what the world is and what the world should be. In particular, narrative texts function as persuasive rhetoric: more than report, they also portray the world by offering the language and images with which to construct it, stimulating the audience’s imagination to know how to take their place in that world. In this way, narrative texts shape society. For example, abolitionists in the USA may have made persuasive analytical arguments about the evil of slavery to a select portion of the population, but it was not until Harriet Beecher Stowe provided faces and places and deeds to the evil with Uncle Tom’s Cabin that a wider community rose up against it. Similarly, I am interested not only in what Mark’s narrative reports, but also in how it portrays the world. My thesis is that Mark’s Gospel functions as persuasive rhetoric by telling the story of Jesus so as to reveal the only world that is reasonable for its audience to inhabit. It does this, in part, by employing apocalyptic language in order to restructure community identity.
A number of scholars who perform socio-political or postcolonial interpretations examine Mark’s use of apocalyptic language as a tool for portraying the world and thus shaping community identity. 1 Although differing in their interpretive details and conclusions, they agree that Mark is written to address the audience’s experience of oppression and social alienation under Roman and Jewish authorities. Accordingly, Mark employs apocalyptic language in the service of political discourse, 2 which functions to shape a social group that resists the dominant order. I affirm the value of these interpretations to expose hermeneutical and interpretive aspects of Mark that traditional approaches have overlooked; however, I contest their sufficiency because they approach the Gospel as resistance literature without a full consideration of its apocalyptic features or its theological aims. I argue that the primary function of Mark’s apocalyptic discourse is not to combat the peril of alienation from the wider cultural community, but to combat the peril of misunderstanding Jesus’ mission and call to discipleship and, consequently, of alienation from Jesus’ community.
I use literary analysis and metaphor theory to consider how apocalyptic discourse functions in Mark as a rhetorical tool to shape community identity. First, I evaluate previous interpretations that take seriously the social dimensions of Mark’s apocalyptic discourse and locate my approach among them. Second, I establish the concept of apocalyptic discourse in Mark in light of the narrative’s political and theological aims. Third, I explain how Mark employs apocalyptic language and ideas to redefine the social concept of the family in order to form the identity of the community that follows Jesus. Fourth, I analyze Mk 8.27–10.45 to demonstrate how apocalyptic discourse functions as social discourse in shaping that community’s identity and practice. For the purpose of this investigation, I seek the nature of the community produced by the narrative, rather than the location of the specific community to which the author wrote.
Previous Interpretations
Kee (1977) pioneered the investigation of the intersection of the apocalyptic and social dimensions of Mark. His three-pronged approach includes the analysis of the literary features of the Gospel, the investigation of its socio-cultural setting, and the use of conceptual models from the Jewish Essene-apocalyptic tradition and Cynic-Stoic itinerant preaching. Based on his analysis, Kee describes the Markan community as an apocalyptic, sectarian community in pre-70 ce Syria. Apocalyptic features of the text provide the key evidence of the sectarian nature of the community, based on the view that apocalyptic groups arose out of a social context of alienation from the Jewish establishment during the post-exilic Persian and Hellenistic periods. 3 Whereas Kee focuses on the community’s alienation from the Jewish establishment, subsequent interpretations focus on its alienation from Roman authorities and their Jewish sympathizers. In what follows, I look at how two socio-political and two postcolonial interpretations of Mark engage its apocalyptic features in their analyses in order to sharpen my own interpretation.
Ched Myers (2008 [1988]) and Herman Waetjen (1989) perform socio-political readings of Mark in their commentaries of the whole Gospel. Both interpret apocalyptic symbols in Mark metaphorically by viewing Satan and demons as symbolic of the ruling authorities and the politics of domination in pre-70 ce Galilee (Myers) or Roman-occupied Syria (Waetjen). Myers combines a sociological interpretation, a materialist hermeneutic and literary approach to present Jesus as a radical, non-violent revolutionary who launches a grassroots movement to inaugurate a new social order in the midst of oppressive institutions (Myers 2008 [1988]: 283). Myers assumes rather than demonstrates that all Jewish apocalyptic literature is engaged in a particular kind of ideological warfare. Jesus’ exorcisms and, ultimately, his crucifixion express Mark’s opposition to the Jerusalem establishment and Roman imperialism. For Myers, Jesus’ death is a victory over the powers because it breaks the pattern of violence. 4 Myers focuses on the cross rather than on the empty tomb or the parousia, because he believes that such foci would invite patterns of triumphalism. 5 Waetjen, on the other hand, marries death and resurrection. He employs a sociopolitical interpretation (particularly the sociology of millenarianism) and a reader-response approach to argue that Jesus constructs a new social order by calling peasants experiencing class warfare to join an egalitarian community that reverses the social, political and economic inequities in the first-century Mediterranean world (Waetjen 1989: 4, 14-17, 70, 81-82). For Waetjen, Mk 1.9-11 is the hermeneutical key to the Gospel. While others were baptized ‘in’ (ἐν) the Jordan, only Jesus was baptized ‘into’ it (εἰς), signifying a true repentance (Waetjen 1989: 21-22, 67-68). Jesus’ descent into the water signifies death to the powers, structures and values of the Roman-Jewish society in which he had participated, and his coming up out of the water signifies resurrection to embody a new humanity who may reorder society (Waetjen 1989: 22, 70).
Tat-siong Benny Liew (1999) and Stephen Moore (2006) perform postcolonial readings of Mark that employ apocalyptic topoi. Liew views all of Mark as having an apocalyptic shape influenced by early Jewish apocalyptic literature that emerged as a protest against colonialism (Liew 1999: 46, 57). He argues that Jesus’ exorcisms indicate the fate of the kingdom of Satan and all oppressive powers. 6 Nevertheless, Liew does not view Mark as a liberating composition. His view is that Mark protests against colonialism not by destroying it, but by reconstructing it. Liew employs the resistance strategy of colonial mimicry to interpret Mark’s Jesus as inaugurating a Kingdom of God that imitates the tyrannical, exclusionary and coercive features of the empire of Rome. 7 For example, Jesus is authoritarian in his demand that people leave everything to follow him exclusively, and is vengeful in his prediction of ultimate victory as the annihilation of all opponents at the parousia (Liew 1999: 107). Ultimately Jesus’ death is a failure that, like other human suffering, prompts God’s intervention at the parousia, which is the only means for solving the problem of evil. As a result, Mark offers a naïve hope as a key resistance strategy that fails to connect vision with agency. Instead, it constructs struggling, frustrated and passive colonial subjects. Like Liew, Moore (2006) sees Jesus’ exorcisms as the signal for the end of evil powers. He considers the story of the Gerasene demoniac to be crucial for Mark’s anti-imperial rhetoric and labels it a ‘national allegory’ by which an individual captures the experience of a whole colonized group (Moore 2006: 26-27). Since this pericope is paradigmatic, Moore extends its anti-colonial sense to every other exorcism in the Gospel (Moore 2006: 27). Also like Liew, Moore employs colonial mimicry, but with a different outcome. He argues that Mark uses the ideas of apocalypse to imitate Roman ideology for establishing the kingdom of God through Jesus, but for critique rather than for counter-oppression (Moore 2006: 37-40). In addition, Mark focuses more on the present community’s experience and ethics than on future rewards. For example, Moore describes the story of the Widow’s Mite (Mk 12.41-44) as ‘apocalyptic’ because it shatters conventional social structures. Mark may covertly support empire by imitating it, but resists it by means of social challenge (Moore 2006: 122-23).
These interpreters share the assumption that all apocalyptic discourse is political discourse that provides a strategy for helping fearful or alienated people to resist, reconstruct or cope with the dominant group. In spite of approaching Mark with a similar ideology (anti-empire) and symbolic world (apocalyptic thought), the differences among these scholars in their interpretive moves and conclusions are striking. A summary of the views of Mark’s strategy of resistance is as follows:
Unmask the powers and/or signal their end (demonic possession/exorcism) – Liew 1999; Moore 2006.
Commit to a way of radical non-violence (crucifixion) – Myers 2008 [1988].
Die to current systems and values and live to form a new egalitarian society (death and resurrection) – Waetjen 1989.
Imitate the oppressive powers to form an alternative power that critiques it – Moore 2006.
Imitate the oppressive powers to form a counter-oppressive power – Liew 1999.
Hope (naively) in God’s intervention (parousia) – Liew 1999.
These differences result from each respective interpreter’s unique hermeneutical approach rather than from their analyses of the appropriation of Jewish apocalyptic thought in Mark’s particular literary context. Moreover, these interpreters share the view that future hope is incompatible with present human activity, so that radical apocalypticism substitutes triumphalism for self-sacrifice (Myers), passivity for agency (Liew) or esoterism for community ethics (Moore). These conclusions reflect a misunderstanding, however, of how the portrayal of the future functions in the apocalyptic imagination. As a result of these observations, I wish to take a closer look at what Mark resists, why he resists it, and how apocalyptic language and images function to construct social identity and practice.
Politics, Theology and Apocalyptic Language
Mark’s narrative is inextricably theological and political. To extract one element from the other overlooks the author’s own cues, flattens the story and obscures the purpose of Mark’s political challenge. The announcement of the beginning of the good news of Jesus the Christ (εὐαγγελίου Ἰησοῦ Χριστοῦ) in the first line of the narrative indicates Mark’s theological aim (Mk 1.1). Mark echoes the language of Genesis: ‘In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth’ (Gen. 1.1). Moreover, Mark ties the announcement to Israel’s prophetic history (1.2-3). Mark ascribes the mixed citation in 1.2-3 (Isa. 40.3; Exod. 23.20//Mal. 3.1) to Isaiah, which points the audience to the redemptive themes in Isa. 40–55. 8 There, the prophet issues a call to prepare the way for Yahweh (40.3) and mobilizes the one who announces the good news (ὁ εὐαγγελιζόμενος, 40.9 LXX; cf. 52.7) of the salvation of Yahweh’s people from the nations (40.3, 10). 9 The nations have held Israel captive because they refused to walk in God’s ways and follow God’s law (Isa. 42.24). Mark fits the story of the appearance of Jesus into a story that is already in progress about God’s creation and redemption of the world.
But also, the announcement in the first line of the narrative suggests Mark’s political challenge. God’s people are still held sway by the nations, now Rome rather than Babylon. The audience may have heard the announcement of the ‘good news’ of Jesus the Christ as an indirect challenge to the imperial expression of identity and power. The imperial discourse communicated the power and authority of Caesar through texts, inscriptions, speech, art (statues, mosaics), coins and architecture in order to inculcate a certain order of the world. 10 Mark’s Jesus offers a competing discourse that recontextualizes familiar images and concepts of empire, so that use of the ‘good news’, the ‘Son of God’ and the ‘kingdom of God’ in the prologue and throughout the narrative propose to the audience a different conception of the world. For example, the state may celebrate the ‘good news’ of the victories of the emperor, but Mark announces the ‘good news’ par excellence of the victory of God in Jesus, the only one with a right to the title ‘Son of God’. 11
Mark’s challenge, however, is not overtly polemical. It is difficult to maintain with Moore that the story of the Gerasene demoniac (Mk 5.1-20) provides an example of an open challenge to Rome. 12 The word λεγιών is the only element of the story that might suggest Roman Empire, which is a slim basis for treating the rest of the pericope – and the rest of the exorcisms – as allegorical for socio-political realities. In this case, the setting for the pericope would be meaningless for the original audience, because no Roman legion was stationed in that region at the time. 13 An explanation more consistent with the larger narrative is that the term λεγιών metaphorically develops the depiction of the struggle between Jesus and the demonic powers that Mark has already introduced in the temptation account and the Beelzebul discourse. 14 Moreover, there is no overt polemic against Rome sustained in the rest of the Gospel. Later, Mark has Jesus predict the destruction of a city, and it is not ‘the destruction of Rome, but rather an act of destruction by Rome’, as Moore himself states (Moore 2006: 34). Finally, Mark singles out a Roman centurion as the only human being to confess that Jesus is the ‘Son of God’ (15.39). Nevertheless, Mark’s rhetorical challenge to Rome is suggestive and therefore potentially dangerous. 15
Mark offers a competing discourse over and against the dominant discourse of power by using apocalyptic language and symbols available from a larger socio-cultural context to marry theological and political concerns.
16
Though Mark is not an apocalypse by genre, it is apocalyptic in character because it manifests features typical of an apocalyptic outlook, which I discuss below. I assume that Jewish apocalypses classified as a literary genre share a characteristic outlook that includes both a vertical-spatial dimension (cosmic forces involved on the earth) and a temporal dimension (movement towards imminent eschatological salvation).
17
I use the adjective ‘apocalyptic’ to describe the characteristic outlook and typical features of the genre ‘apocalypse’ that may also be applied to writings exhibiting these characteristics while lying outside the genre.
18
According to John J. Collins (1998: 9), The literary genre apocalypse is not a self-contained isolated entity. The conceptual structure indicated by the genre, which emphasized the supernatural world and the judgment to come, can also be found in works that are not revelation accounts, and so are not technically apocalypses. So, for example, the Qumran War Scroll is widely and rightly regarded as ‘apocalyptic’ in the extended sense, although it is not presented as a revelation.
Writings like the War Scroll, Jubilees, the Testaments of the Twelve Patriarchs and the Gospel of Mark may not display literary conventions typical of the genre apocalypse, but these writings do employ apocalyptic topoi as persuasive rhetoric. Rather than them belonging to the genre apocalypse, Newsom (2007: 21) suggests that we may think of these compositions as ‘participating in … invoking … gesturing to …’ the genre.
Apocalyptic language and images provide resources to portray a reality beyond what is visible to the human eye when people’s experiences clash with what they believe to be the right order of the world. 19 To illustrate, the Book of Dreams (1 En. 83–90) employs apocalyptic language to reveal the supernatural dimensions and the fixed end of a struggle against human enemies. Angels appear to punish both human offenders and their heavenly counterparts (1 En. 90.26-27). At the climactic point of the vision, God intervenes directly to judge Gentile enemies and to authorize the righteous to participate in a military action against them (1 En. 90.15-19). This vision rallies a victimized people differently from Daniel, which envisions the righteous strengthened for a non-violent response to persecution (Dan. 7.21, 25; 11.33-35; 12.1-3). In both compositions, however, God’s judgment promises to overturn the current moral, social and political order. Apocalyptic discourse gives assurance of God’s sovereignty and hope that the current victimization of God’s people is temporary. On these grounds, God’s people are strengthened to take action under current oppressive conditions by demonstrating faithful covenant living. Ethics is the culmination of an apocalyptic outlook. 20
In addition to identifying characteristics of apocalyptic themes, it is necessary to determine their function, because not all Jewish and Christian apocalyptic literature is written to resist empire. 21 Greg Carey (2005) makes an important contribution to this investigation through his definition of ‘apocalyptic discourse’ as ‘the constellation of apocalyptic topics as they function in larger early Jewish and Christian literary and social contexts. Thus, apocalyptic discourse should be treated as a flexible set of resources … for a variety of persuasive tasks’ (Carey 2005: 5). The same topic or set of topics (topoi) may be characteristic of apocalyptic literature (e.g., persecution, judgment, angels, demons, cosmic dualism), but may function differently in each respective composition, according to the writer’s aim. For example, apocalyptic topoi function in a variety of ways among Daniel, 1 Enoch, Jubilees and the Testaments of the Twelve Patriarchs. These compositions employ apocalyptic language and images in order to address the problem of the victimization of the righteous. Nevertheless, apocalyptic discourse varies according to specific concerns. An author may employ apocalyptic topoi in order to provide a resource for resistance against political domination, 22 social injustice 23 or temptations that plague the flesh. 24
The Gospel of Mark manifests a range of recurring apocalyptic topoi: heavenly intermediaries, cosmic battle, the binding of Satan, and the idea of eschatological salvation. At Jesus’ baptism, the Holy Spirit breaks into the world from an open heaven and thrusts Jesus into the wilderness to be tempted by Satan. The brevity of the prologue and the proximity of the baptism and temptation accounts to the opening citation suggest that Mark views the conflict between the Spirit-filled Jesus and Satan as the beginning of the fulfillment of Israel’s prophetic hope. Mark recontextualizes Israel’s tradition through apocalyptic language and images to create new connections in order to convey new meaning to Israel’s hope. Whereas Isaiah presents God as the Mighty One of Jacob (ἰσχύος Ἰακωβ, Isa. 49.26; cf. 40.10, κύριος μετὰ ἰσχύος ἔρχεται) who struggles against Babylon, Mark presents the Spirit-filled Jesus as the mighty one (ἔρχεται ὁ ἰσχυρότερός μου, 1.7; cf. 3.27) who struggles against Satan. This conflict is developed in the Beelzebul discourse (3.22-30), where Jesus, Satan and the Spirit return. Mark’s worldview is similar to that of the Qumran literature, in which the current upside-down state of affairs is explained as the time of Belial’s rule (1QM 14.9; 1QS 1.11-12; 2.19; 3.21-25; CD 12.23; 15.17; 11QMelch). In Mark, Satan rules the earth with his army of demons and holds its people captive like a strong man who has possession of a house and its inhabitants until the Spirit-filled Jesus comes to bind him and plunder his domain in order to establish a new worshipping community (Mk 3.22-30, 31-35). 25
It is not enough simply to note that Mark contains apocalyptic topoi; we must also investigate how Mark employs these for a persuasive purpose (apocalyptic discourse). Although we cannot ascertain the particular social setting of Mark with certainty, evidence internal to the Gospel suggests that Mark seeks to explain the suffering and death of Jesus and his followers. For example, the three passion predictions that join Jesus’ suffering and death to his resurrection, and the subsequent three teachings that join Jesus’ suffering-to-glory pattern to a pattern of discipleship, are met repeatedly with misunderstanding. These experiences are problematic for the proclamation of the gospel, and so clash with the ‘right’ order of the world. The main rhetorical function of Mark’s apocalyptic discourse is to persuade the audience to testify and suffer for the sake of Jesus and the gospel. Nevertheless, the function of Mark’s discourse extends to challenge visions of the world espoused by Rome and the ruling authorities. Conceptions of an unambiguously glorious Messiah 26 germinated in the context of Hellenistic domination and burgeoned through the Roman discourse of status and power. When Mark’s Jesus predicts that the Son of Man must suffer, die and rise (8.31; 9.31; 10.33-34), when he calls followers to deny themselves and take up their cross, and when he exhorts his disciples to consider themselves to be like slaves and children, he opposes a way of ordering the world considered normal not only by his disciples, but also by every other group in the narrative. 27
Restructuring a Social Concept with Apocalyptic Topoi
My first task is to examine how Mark uses apocalyptic topoi to redefine the family, because this social concept provides the key paradigm in the narrative for the community that follows Jesus. 28 I use the metaphor theory of Lakoff and Johnson (1980) to illuminate the socio-rhetorical features of the text: ‘metaphor’ is not simply a linguistic term, but is a social concept by which people structure what they observe, experience and do (Lakoff and Johnson 1980: 3, 145-46). In other words, people interpret their observations, experiences and actions according to other observations, experiences and actions (Lakoff and Johnson 1980: 4-9, 77-83, 117-25, esp. 119). Structural metaphors organize one concept in terms of another in order to create new meaning. For instance, the metaphor ‘argument is war’ employs two discrete concepts in order to imagine a dispute as a physical combat. Since metaphors reflect a society’s values, another group might imagine that ‘argument is a dance’ (Lakoff and Johnson 1980: 144-46). Also, orientational metaphors build a whole system of concepts in terms of another. These are usually spatial metaphors, such as the conception of what is ‘up’ or ‘down’ or what is ‘in’ or ‘out’ (Lakoff and Johnson 1980: 14). We understand spatial metaphors because we have physical bodies that function in a spatial setting: to be well and alive is to be ‘up’ and walking, while to be sick or dead is to be ‘down’, on a bed or in a grave. However, these metaphors are construed by the way a particular society understands what is ‘up’ and ‘down’ or ‘in’ and ‘out’. For example, the Washington Post annually publishes ‘The List’, a catalog of the fashion, books, plays and technical gadgets that are ‘in’ and ‘out’ for the coming year. The entries on the list only make full sense in an American context. I apply this metaphor theory to the redefinition of family in Mark. Throughout the narrative, Jesus forms a social group, that is, a community gathered for a particular purpose and organized around shared customs. Particularly, Jesus restructures kinship ties to form a new family organized around ‘doing God’s will’.
Jesus calls his first disciples to leave their families and follow him (Mk 1.16-17). He sets apart the Twelve to be with him, and to imitate him in his preaching and exorcising ministry (3.14-16). When Jesus’ kin and religious family both challenge that ministry (3.20-22, 30), Jesus answers, in part, by portraying his mission as the plundering of Satan’s household to free those held captive there. Juxtaposed to that description of Satan’s household, Mark depicts Jesus as sitting as the head of another household (3.31-35). A spatial metaphor is apparent in Mark’s contrast between Jesus’ relatives who are ‘outside’ and those who are ‘inside’ the house. There, Jesus declares that his true family is composed not of kin, but of those who do God’s will. Mark thereby paints a multi-part portrait: Jesus rescues people from one house where Satan is lord in order to establish them in another house where Jesus is Lord. By imagining the struggle between Satan and Jesus, Mark sets the formation of this fictive kinship group in the context of cosmic conflict.
The people of Jesus’ new family are organized not by blood or religious ties, but by the purposeful activity of doing God’s will (Mk 3.35). The organization of this family may be explained in terms of a structural metaphor. That is, Jesus defines its characteristics such that it is not ‘family by kinship’ or ‘family by religious ethnicity’, but ‘family by doing the will of God’. Community identity is therefore determined by practice. Moreover, the context of 3.31-35 suggests that ‘doing the will of God’ involves endorsing and participating in Jesus’ contest against satanic power, since those who stand ‘outside’ the house have disputed that contest. Apocalyptic discourse sets not only the formation but also the identity and practice of Jesus’ fictive kinship group in the context of cosmic conflict.
Mark builds the characteristics of this family in the rest of the narrative by further revealing that ‘doing the will of God’ means imitating Jesus by heeding his call to deny oneself and take up one’s cross to follow him (Mk 8.34; 14.36). The story of the Rich Young Man (10.17-31) gives a specific example of this challenge. After the man walks away, unable to heed Jesus’ call to sell all he has, give it to the poor, and follow Jesus, Peter points out that he and the other disciples have done what the rich man has not: they have renounced their resources to follow Jesus by giving up their families and their livelihood (10.28; cf. 1.16-20). Jesus promises that those who deny themselves to follow him receive in abundance what they renounced: now they receive an abundant family along with persecutions; in the age to come they receive the eternal life that the rich man sought (10.29-30). The social group that forms around Jesus shares a common existence and endures persecution at the present time for the goal of eternal life (cf. 13.9-11). Ultimately, Jesus’ new family not only transcends the borders of kin and ethnicity to participate in a cosmic conflict, but also transcends the borders of time and space to enjoy an eschatological existence.
The Olivet discourse develops the nature of this once and future family by exhorting followers to be faithful in light of the destruction of the temple and the coming of the Son of Man. The speech is constructed as an answer to the disciples’ question about the time and the signs of Jesus’ prediction about the destruction of the temple (Mk 13.4), particularly through repeated vocabulary, e.g., πότε ταῦτα ἔσται καὶ τί τὸ σημεῖον ὅταν μέλλῃ ταῦτα συντελεῖσθαι πάντα, 13.4; cf. σημεῖα, 13.22; πάντα, 13.23; τί, 13.29; ὅταν…ταῦτα, 13.29. Nevertheless, the speech essentially functions as a response to the disciples’ misunderstanding about the end of all things. Jesus’ point is that the destruction of the temple may be a harbinger, but it is not the end of all things, as the disciples appear to believe. The end will come only after Jesus’ followers endure the kind of suffering that the disciples have resisted so far in the narrative. The unit is framed with warnings to watch (βλέπετε) and beware of false Christs who would lead Jesus’ disciples astray (13.5-6, 21-23). Within this frame, Jesus describes war and natural disasters (13.7-8), persecution and mission (13.9-13), and the desolating sacrilege (13.14-17). 29 A series of imperatives throughout 13.5-23 marks Jesus’ instruction to followers about how to live in light of the worldly upheaval. 30 By contrast, 13.24-27 focuses on cosmic upheaval and contains no imperatives. This section is set off both by the absence of imperatives and by the introduction of an indefinite timeframe, ‘in those days, after that tribulation’ (13.24). This scene is the end time judgment that includes the rejection of those who deny Jesus and the salvation of those who endure public suffering for his sake (see 8.34-38). 31 Throughout this speech, Jesus focuses on his followers, the elect who endure steadfastly to the end through suffering and tribulation for his sake and the gospel’s. 32 The anti-temple polemic in chs. 11–12 establishes a contrast between the faithlessness of the temple leadership and the faithfulness expected of Jesus’ followers in ch. 13.
The parables at the end of the Olivet discourse reinforce the message of the speech about the faithfulness of Jesus’ followers. First, in the Parable of the Fig Tree (13.28-31) Jesus uses the implications of the sprouting tree as an analogy to teach his followers that they will know ὁτι ἐγγύς ἐστιν θύραις (13.29) when they see ‘these things’ (ταῦτα), that is, the events described in 13.5-23. 33 These events include not only the desolating sacrilege that signals the temple’s destruction (13.14-17), but also natural disasters and wars, the work of false teachers, the suffering and persecution of Jesus’ followers, and the escalated tribulation. In short, all those events that Jesus’ followers must interpret rightly and endure until the end. The most natural antecedent for ἐγγύς ἐστιν is the Son of Man who comes to gather the elect in 13.26-27. 34 The gathering of the elect fits the analogy of the harvest, OT imagery of the restoration of God’s people at the time of judgment. 35 The metaphor of the tree that produces leaves without fruit recalls Jesus’ cursing of the fig tree in ch. 11 as a sign of the temple’s judgment. In the current context, the main point of the parable is best seen not as a guide for the time of that judgment, but as an evocative warning for the preparation of Jesus’ followers for the coming of the Son of Man in light of that judgment. If the present house can fall in spite of its status (13.1-3), then the members of Jesus’ new household are not above reproach.
Second, in the Parable of the Householder Mark calls the followers of Jesus to live and work faithfully as members of his household until his return (13.32-37). The man in the parable is the ‘lord of the house’ (ὁ κύριος τῆς οἰκίας, 13.35), and the genitive pronouns emphasize his ownership: it is his house (τἠν οἰκίαν αὐτοῦ, 13.34), and they are his servants (τοῖς δούλοις αὐτοῦ, 13.34). This is the continuing household of Jesus, in contrast to the household mentioned earlier in the narrative over which Satan was lord (3.22-30): that was Satan’s house (τὴν οἰκίαν τοῦ ἰσχυροῦ, τὴν οἰκίαν αὐτοῦ, 3.27), with his goods (τὰ σκεύη αὐτοῦ, 3.27), that is, the people held captive there. Jesus has rescued people from Satan’s household and placed them in a new house (3.27, 31-35). Now, at the end of the Olivet discourse he portrays his new household at work – resisting, testifying, suffering and dying (13.9-13) – until he returns as the Son of Man.
The Social Function of Apocalyptic Discourse in Mark 8.27–10.45
Throughout Mark’s narrative, apocalyptic discourse functions to portray cosmic conflict as the setting for the formation, identity and practice of Jesus’ new family with a view to future rewards. In 8.27–10.45, Mark focuses on the interaction between Jesus and his disciples to refine the practice of those who wish to participate in that social group. This unit marks a turning point of the Gospel with Peter’s confession and Jesus’ first passion prediction (8.27-31). Throughout the unit, apocalyptic discourse functions persuasively through narration and characterization to build the opposition established at the outset between τὰ τῶν ἀνθρώπων and τὰ τοῦ θεοῦ (8.33), allowing the audience to consider and evaluate their own status and commitments. 36
Structure
The structure of Mk 8.27–10.45 displays rhetorical power in two ways. First, the unit is framed by miracle stories in which Jesus provides physical sight to blind men, signaling the spiritual sight his disciples need (8.22-26; 10.46-52). Immediately preceding the first miracle story, Jesus admonishes the Twelve for their failure to understand his activity, demonstrating their lack of perception (8.13-21). This is surprising, because the Twelve had constituted the first members of Jesus’ new family. They had been ‘insiders’ whom Jesus commissioned to imitate him in his preaching and exorcising ministry and to whom he explained his teaching (3.13-14; 4.11-12, 33-34; 6.7-13, 30). By building misunderstanding into the characterization of the disciples, the narrative alters the view of the audience. Those who were once insiders are now outsiders because they lack spiritual insight. Jesus’ gradual healing of the blind man at Bethsaida suggests that clear spiritual sight, like clear physical sight, comes gradually and miraculously. The audience approaches the section at 8.27–10.45 with an unsettled conception of discipleship.
Second, a threefold pattern unifies 8.27–10:45 and develops its themes. Three times, Jesus predicts that he will suffer, die and rise (8.31; 9.31; 10.32-34). After each prediction, the disciples misconstrue the nature of Jesus’ mission and the politics of God’s kingdom (8.32-33; 9.32; 10.35-41). Jesus responds to each misunderstanding with corrective teaching about the nature of the disciples’ own mission (8.34-37; 9.33-37; 10.42-45). The repetition of this threefold pattern of passion prediction, misunderstanding, corrective teaching builds the notion that to misunderstand Jesus’ identity and mission is to misunderstand one’s own. Throughout this section, Mark presents Jesus’ disciples as negative examples, helping the audience to articulate and evaluate their own understanding and experience of Jesus’ identity and mission and their relationship to it. The text leads the audience to a certain conception of Jesus’ significance and what sort of attitudes and behaviors are appropriate for his followers.
Interpretive Lens
Jesus’ interaction with Peter in the opening scene (Mk 8.27-33) provides the interpretive lens for the subsequent material. Upon Peter’s confession that Jesus is the Christ, Jesus interprets this by predicting his passion (8.32). The use of the phrase ‘Son of Man’ in conjunction with his suffering and death conveys a paradox in the concept of ‘Messiah’. The image of the Son of Man likely comes from Dan. 7.14, where the one like a son of man appears as a glorious, heavenly figure. 37 Like Daniel, Mark imagines a glorious figure (Mk 13.24-27; 14.62). Unlike Daniel, Mark’s Son of Man rises to this status only after suffering and dying. The Markan Jesus redefines the image of the Son of Man to comprise humility and weakness instead of only glory. The redefined image of the Son of Man upsets conventional expectations that the Messiah would achieve political liberation from the Romans and Jewish sympathizers. Accordingly, Peter responds to Jesus’ prediction by rebuking him because suffering and death do not fit Peter’s conception of ‘Messiah’ (8.31-32). Jesus then responds by rebuking Peter as ‘Satan’ (8.33) and contrasting two ways of existence, that which is according to τὰ τῶν ἀνθρώπων and that which is according to τὰ τοῦ θεοῦ. The literary context suggests that existence according to τὰ τῶν ἀνθρώπων is a particular way of thinking and living that refuses the endurance of suffering in keeping with the will of God (δεῖ τὸν υἱὸν τοῦ ἀνθρώπου πολλὰ παθεῖν, 8.31). Jesus’ passion prediction indicates that suffering precedes the resurrection and the glorification of the Son of Man, so that the contrast between τὰ τοῦ θεοῦ and τὰ τῶν ἀνθρώπων is a contrast between conflicting principles of status and power. Moreover, by naming Satan as the source of τὰ τῶν ἀνθρώπων, Jesus reveals that the opposition between τὰ τῶν ἀνθρώπων and τὰ τοῦ θεοῦ manifests a cosmic struggle that intersects with human choices. This vision reflects an apocalyptic symbolic world in which Satan seeks to divert people from the will of God (cf. 4.15). 38 The rest of the unit from 8.34 to 10.45 builds a binary opposition between attitudes and choices according to τὰ τῶν ἀνθρώπων, inspired by Satan, and attitudes and choices according to τὰ τοῦ θεοῦ. The text thereby puts certain choices before the audience, urging them to adopt a particular way of thinking and living by revealing Satan as the source of the conventional attainment of status and power through lording it over others, and revealing God as the source for an unconventional attainment of status and power through self-sacrificial service.
The dualistic nature of these correspondences (Satan and human ways vs God and God’s ways) develops the cosmic struggle introduced with the wilderness temptation (1.12-13) and expanded in the Beelzebul controversy (3.22-30). Jesus not only struggles against Satan for the physical bodies of the possessed, but also for the minds and hearts of those who embrace worldliness. Apocalyptic discourse functions as persuasive rhetoric by revealing that those who oppose Jesus’ suffering and death are opposed to God and are, in fact, on Satan’s side. Using Lakoff’s and Johnson’s language, apocalyptic discourse functions to turn what is ‘up’ ‘down’ (conventional views of status and power) and to turn what is ‘down’ ‘up’ (status and power redefined through self-sacrificial service). By challenging Messianic conceptions, Jesus also challenges the pervasive values of the Roman world, because the kingdom he preaches is antithetical to them. By restructuring this worldview, Mark’s Jesus implicitly overturns the dominant socio-political order. 39
Content
Jesus conveys the characteristics of those who think according to τὰ τοῦ θεοῦ by tying his own mission to that of his followers. 40 After Peter’s denial, Jesus teaches that those who wish to follow him must deny themselves and take up their cross (Mk 8.34). He explains this saying (γάρ, 8.35) by contrasting two ways of existence, only one of which is effective for salvation, or entry into the kingdom of God. 41 On the one hand, those who wish to secure their lives and possessions will lose them. On the other hand, those who relinquish their lives for the sake of Jesus and the gospel will save them (8.35-36). On the one hand, those who deny Jesus, presumably by refusing to deny themselves, will experience his denial when he returns in glory as the Son of Man (8.37-38). On the other hand, those whose self-denial leads to death receive the promise of salvation and glory at the consummation of the rule of God (9.1). 42 Through a series of contrasts, Jesus conveys what kind of rule he has come to establish and what kind of people lay hold of it. He reverses the ‘up’/‘down’ construal of the power by which the rule of God is established and inhabited. Conventional views of power that rely on self-aggrandizement or aggression to influence the course of events or to achieve socio-political authority may be ‘up’ in the economy of conventional ruling systems (e.g., 10.42) but are ‘down’ in the economy of God’s rule. Jesus infuses concepts of status and power with new meaning by teaching that the weak, humble and self-sacrificing – those who appear to have no advantage from a human point of view – are the ones who inhabit God’s kingdom.
The material that follows the second and third passion predictions develops the opposition between τὰ τῶν ἀνθρώπων and τὰ τοῦ θεοῦ by redefining ‘greatness’. After the second prediction, the disciples betray an imaginative construal of the politics of God’s rule that reflects a way of thinking according to τὰ τῶν ἀνθρώπων. They debate who is the greatest, each contending for first rank in the supposed kingdom that Jesus will establish (9.34). The text contrasts two ways of becoming ‘first’: through self-aggrandizement or through service. Jesus metaphorically restructures the idea of greatness by placing among them a child, a figure of weakness and low status in the ancient world, but a figure of greatness in God’s kingdom (9.35-37). Children held a subordinate position in society, much like that of a servant. 43 Jesus combines the images of servant and child to convey that true greatness is found in weakness (9.35-36). Rather than teaching them to be like the child, as we might expect, Jesus teaches them to receive the child in his name. Elevating the most unlikely figure to the greatest status, Jesus tells the disciples that they must welcome that one. In other words, those who want to be great must consider themselves to be lower than the low. Furthermore, Jesus and God are the figures who correspond to the child in the example (‘whoever receives one such child … receives me, and whoever receives me, receives not me but the one who sent me’, 9.37). 44 Indeed, Jesus’ predictions of his own suffering and death make him appear to be least and lowest. If the disciples can receive their master in his weakness and humility, then they have understood the principle of greatness according to τὰ τοῦ θεοῦ.
The catch phrase ‘receive in my name’ (δέξηται ἐπὶ τῶ ὀνόματί, 9.37, 38, 39, 41) connects the passage about who is the greatest (9.33-37) with the passage about the strange exorcist (9.38-41). When the disciples tell Jesus that they tried to stop another exorcist ‘because he was not following us’, they reveal that they have not learned the lesson of the child. Jesus initiated the Twelve and authorized them to preach and cast out demons. But in their view this man had been neither initiated nor authorized. What authorizes this man, however, is not his position, but his activity ‘in Jesus’ name’ (9.39). The disciples’ quest for exclusivity reveals that they are more concerned with their own reputation than they are with the success of Jesus’ mission.
Another example of a child accentuates the extent of the disciples’ lack of understanding (Mk 10.13-16). They have tried to stop an unauthorized exorcist; now they try to stop unauthorized parents from bringing their children to Jesus. Moreover, the disciples try to prevent Jesus himself from enacting the new way of thinking and living about which he had just taught using the example of a child! Jesus continues restructuring the idea of greatness by saying that a person must be like a child to enter the rule of God (10.15). Now the disciples correspond to the child in the example. The community that forms around Jesus receives God’s rule in weakness and humility, just like a child, just like Jesus.
As Jesus and his disciples approach Jerusalem (Mk 10.32), messianic expectations are undoubtedly heightened, and the disciples continue to develop their construal of the politics of God’s rule. Their earlier contention for the status of ‘the greatest’ is manifest in the request of James and John to be Jesus’ right- and left-hand men when he comes into his ‘glory’ (ἐν τῇ δόξῃ σου, 10.37). The indignation of the other ten disciples when they hear that James and John are jockeying for status shows that all of them think according to τὰ τῶν ἀνθρώπων. The phrase, ἐν τῇ δόξῃ σου recalls Jesus’ earlier description of the Son of Man coming in glory (8.38). The three passion predictions have emphasized that the Son of Man will suffer first, and Jesus has tied this suffering-to-glory pattern to the experience of his followers. But James and John, like Peter at the transfiguration, appear to want the glory of the kingdom of God without prerequisites. Accordingly, Jesus replies that they do not know what they ask. Are they able to drink his cup and undergo his baptism? In other words, are they able to share in his suffering and death? 45 Their impulsive reply and Jesus’ teaching exposes their foolhardiness. Using an example from the Gentile world, Jesus says that the politics of God’s kingdom is opposed to the politics of human kingdoms. According to human kingdoms, those who are deemed to be great (οἱ μεγάλοι αὐτῶν, 10.42) wield their power with lording-it-over-others authority. Jesus’ community is to be different: anyone who wishes to become great among Jesus’ followers (μέγας … ἐν ὑμῖν) must serve the others, and the one who wishes to be first must be their slave (10.42-44). Not only does Jesus challenge the disciple’s worldview, but he also presents an implicit challenge to the imperial discourse of status and power by calling forth a kingdom community with the opposite values. In other words, Jesus’ discourse renders a blow to the imperial propaganda that depicts the socio-political power of the empire as a structure to be heeded and a pattern to be copied. Jesus calls his followers to a new way of being in the world.
The unit (Mk 8.27–10.45) has reached a near climax. Throughout, the Markan Jesus has redefined conventional views of power and greatness. Understood in terms of a structural metaphor, power and greatness according to the politics of God’s kingdom are not through self-preservation or a lord-it-over-others regime (according to τὰ τῶν ἀνθρώπων), but instead are through self-sacrificial service (according to τὰ τοῦ θεοῦ). Moreover, Mark has strengthened this metaphorical restructuring by establishing a cosmic dualism at the outset of the unit that associates the conventional view with Satan and the unconventional view with God (8.31-33). After Peter’s rebuke, the narrative repeatedly returns by repetition and variation to similar attitudes, actions and words in the disciples’ concern for conventional greatness and power, and to Jesus’ repeated corrective teaching. This repetition has a cumulative effect of implanting in the audience’s mind one central issue: conventional ways of understanding and attaining greatness and power are to be avoided. Stated in terms of a spatial metaphor, lording it over others is ‘down’ and self-sacrificial service is ‘up’. The Twelve’s repeated appearances as negative examples allow the audience seriously to evaluate their own position as followers of Jesus.
The rhetorical effect of Mk 8.27–10.45 is intensified at its climactic point, when Jesus gives his own attitudes and actions as the quintessential example of his teaching: ‘For even the Son of Man came not to be served but to serve and to give his life (δοῦναι τὴν ψυχὴν αὐτοῦ) as a ransom for many’ (10.45). The disciples may be expecting that when Jesus enters Jerusalem, all will serve him. Instead, he is destined to die. As the Son of Man, Jesus will indeed attain greatness and glory (8.38), but by serving and dying for others. The phrase δοῦναι τὴν ψυχὴν αὐτοῦ recalls the content of the passion predictions, in which Jesus predicts his death. It also recalls 8.35, in which Jesus calls his followers to deny themselves and take up their cross by losing their lives (ἀπολέσει τὴν ψυχὴν αὐτοῦ) for his sake. Such humility is a manifestation of existence according to τὰ τοῦ θεοῦ. The singular example of Jesus’ words and action serves not only as a basis for the servant-like behavior that Jesus enjoins in 10.43-44, but also as the antithesis of the disciples’ cumulative words and actions according to τὰ τῶν ἀνθρώπων.
By the end of this unit, Mark appears to have separated the world into binary oppositions that include saving/losing, physical life/eternal life, being first/being last, greatness/servanthood. But the Markan Jesus does not say ‘do not save’, ‘do not be first’ or ‘do not be great’; rather, he gives new meaning to the idea of ‘saving’, ‘being first’ and ‘greatness’ by creating new associations that embody thinking and living according to τὰ τοῦ θεοῦ. In fact, the text enjoins the audience to save, to be first, to be great, with the understanding that truly to save is now to lose, truly to be first is to be last, and truly to be great is to serve. Through this new meaning, the text overturns conventional political ideas that include the security of one’s own life and possessions, self-aggrandizement, the exclusion of the weak and ‘unauthorized’, and a domineering authority structure. The real binary opposition, then, is that which introduced the entire section: τὰ τοῦ θεοῦ set against τὰ τῶν ἀνθρώπων, inspired by Satan. This dualism is similar to that found in the Qumran literature, in which the Prince of Light rules over the righteous and in which Belial rules over sinners and seeks (unsuccessfully) to lead the righteous astray (CD 3.17-25; 5.18-19; 12.2; 1QM 13.10-11; 12.2-5; 14.9-10). While the Qumran literature exhibits a determinism in which peoples’ natures and destinies are fixed as children of light or children of darkness (e.g., 1QH 9.9, 16, 19), Mark’s presentation of human beings is more complex, allowing for repentance and change. Accordingly, Mark’s apocalyptic discourse encourages certain attitudes and behaviors among those who wish to inhabit the world proposed by the text, that is, the kingdom of God.
The narrative persuades the audience to inhabit a paradoxical world. The rhetorical effect of the narrative logic of Mk 8.27–10.45 is to restrain certain attitudes and behaviors that exhibit human, satanic thoughts and that result in the loss of God’s kingdom, and to promote other attitudes and behaviors that exhibit God’s thoughts and result in the reward of God’s kingdom. By the time the audience reaches 10.45, the only reasonable world to inhabit is the one that conventional wisdom deems to be upside down and inside out.
Conclusion
The community produced by the text has a theological raison d’être, with political ramifications. It exists as an alternative social reality because it follows Jesus, not because it resists, reorders or manages socio-political power structures. Because it follows Jesus, the community faces opposing power structures that it may then resist, reorder or manage. Mark is not resistance literature per se; however, it is a complex composition that offers a strategy of resistance because the values of God’s kingdom are antithetical to those of the dominant group. Through apocalyptic discourse, Mark reveals a reality that allows God’s people to see what they formerly perceived to be upside down, now as right side up. As a result, they may explain the suffering and death of the Messiah not as a failure, but as a success and even a necessity of God’s plan (δεῖ, 8.31). They may interpret their own suffering and counter-cultural choices positively, because these align with τὰ τοῦ θεοῦ. They may be persuaded to testify to the gospel when their daily experiences tell them otherwise, because they have a vision of their future. They may acknowledge that evil is real and pervades the world, but that it has no true or lasting power because God has fixed its end. Apocalyptic discourse provides the resources for Jesus’ followers to form and maintain their identity as those who proclaim the gospel in the context of a hostile environment and who live self-sacrificially even in the face of death. Mark gives the audience eyes to see what human vision would otherwise miss about the experience of rejection, suffering, domination and power, in order to shape a new community, inspire it to hope, and compel it to action.
Footnotes
1.
These include Waetjen 1989, Liew 1999, Moore 2006, Myers 2008 [1988] and 
. I discuss their work below.
2.
I use ‘politics’ in the modern sense to refer to a society’s operating principles of power and status. Aristotle defined politics in terms of a partnership with the goal of ensuring the wellbeing and ethical living of the citizens of a polis (Aristotle, Ethics 1099b, 30). All citizens were expected to participate in politics if the polis was to function properly.
3.
This view is developed in Plöger 1959, Hanson 1979 and .
5.
Myers therefore interprets the cross as the fulfillment of the prophecies of the appearance of the ‘Human One’/‘Son of Man’.
6.
7.
Liew employs the theory of colonial mimicry delineated in Bhabha 1994: 85-92. develops Liew’s argument.
8.
10.
For example, the Res Gestae, a text chronicling Augustus’s achievements, was not only inscribed at the emperor’s tomb, but also copied on the walls of imperial cult temples in order to show the place of the empire and its citizens in the world. See Miles 2000: 41. In addition, a mosaic from the Roman town El Djem communicates a particular power structure by depicting Rome at the center with important provinces like Africa and Spain encircling it like spokes radiating from the hub of a wheel, offering their goods and services to the center. Elites in local towns and cities both demonstrated their solidarity with this model of power and their own social status by displaying mosaics like this in their homes. See further : 17-20.
11.
For discussions of terms and concepts of empire in Mark, see Schmidt 1997: 30-37; Kim 1998: 221-41; Evans 2000: 67-68; : 326-40.
12.
Those who see an overt challenge to Roman empire in Mk 5.1-20 include Theissen 1983: 254-55; Waetjen 1989: 115-18; Crossan 1991: 314-18; Dormandy 2000: 335-37; Horsley 2001: 140-47; Burdon 2004: 159-67; Myers 2008 [1988]: 190-94; and Winn 2014: 327. Those who argue against this view include Lane 1974: 184-85 n. 17; Yarbro Collins 2007: 269-70; and : 108-11.
13.
There was no fixed legion stationed in Judea until after the Jewish War. The closest one was located farther north, in Syria. Indeed, the New Testament never uses the word ‘legion’ to refer to troops, but refers to ‘cohorts’ (Mt. 27.27; Mk 15.16; Acts 10.1; 21.31; 27.1). See Jeffers 1999: 174, 177, 328. : 49-51) comments, ‘Rome stationed a legion in Galilee around 130 CE. Thereafter signs of Gentile pagan culture appear in the archaeological record.’
14.
See also the use of λεγιῶνας in Mt. 26.53.
15.
For example, Suetonius records Augustus’s distaste of anonymous criticism. While it appears that he responded to direct criticism, Augustus collected and burned anonymous Greek and Latin tracts and writings and sought help calling to account those who displayed anonymous criticism. See Suetonius, Augustus 31.1, 55.
16.
Allan T. Georgia (2013) and Adam Winn (2014) contend that Mark employs available language and symbols from Roman political ideology that would have made sense in the context of the wider culture in order to communicate his message about Jesus to his audience. Winn argues that Mark exploits the Roman political ideal of servant and sacrificial leader to explain Jesus’ mission for a Roman audience, and ‘that Mark’s use of this ideal ultimately functions in order to subvert the power and propaganda of Rome’s emperors’ (Winn 2014: 25 [his emphasis]). Georgia argues that Mark employs the Roman triumph to justify Jesus as both victim and victor. He sees Mark’s subversion of Rome as subtle rather than overt: Mark’s chief aim is to defend the crucifixion both as a triumph and as a pattern to follow (: 30-32). My own view, in looking at the language and symbols of apocalyptic theology and ideology, is like that of Georgia. Mark’s use of the language and symbols of Roman ideology does not aim primarily to subvert the power and propaganda of Rome – though it does do that – but to illuminate and defend Jesus’ identity and mission and that of his followers.
17.
I assume the definition of ‘apocalypse’ by John J. Collins (1979: 9; : 5): ‘a genre of revelatory literature with a narrative framework, in which a revelation is mediated by an otherworldly being to a human recipient, disclosing a transcendent reality which is both temporal, insofar as it envisages eschatological salvation, and spatial insofar as it involves another supernatural world’.
19.
For example, Portier-Young (2011: 4; cf. 217-22) argues that the book of Daniel, the Apocalypse of Weeks (1 En. 93.1-10 + 91.11-17), and the Book of Dreams (1 En. 83–90) were composed as resistance literature during the reign of Antiochus IV because ‘competing demands for absolute loyalty rested on competing claims to absolute power and competing visions and constructions of reality. The apocalyptic worldview envisioned a radical relocation of power and in this way redefined the possible and the real, thus clarifying the context for action and empowering the work of resistance’. Cf. Hanson 1979: 26-30; : 23-37.
20.
21.
22.
Dan. 10.2–11.1; 7; 1 En. 90.15-19, 26-36.
23.
1 En. 46.4-8; 47.1-2, 4; 96.4-8.
24.
Jub. 1.20-21; 5.1-2; 7.20-33; 10.1-6; 12.20; 16.31; 20.28; T. Reub. 4.11; T. Dan 4.7; T. Ash. 1.8-9; T. Iss. 4.1-6; T. Ash. 1.8-9; T. Naph. 8.4-6.
26.
For example, in Dan. 7 and in the Similitudes of 1 Enoch, the ‘one like a son of man’ and the Son of Man, respectively, represent the righteous as glorious figures that do not suffer.
27.
Adam Winn notes that Roman political ideology was governed by the strategy of recusatio, the refusal to exhibit one’s position of political power without actually relinquishing that power. He comments, ‘It seems quite certain that Roman readers would understand this critique of their own rulers in the context of their own political ideals – ideals that thoroughly rejected the tyrannical abuse and ostentatious demonstrations of power. The Markan Jesus’ rejection of domineering and tyrannical rule would be favourably received by Mark’s Roman audience, which saw in Jesus’ teaching their own deeply held political convictions’. Winn notes Tacitus’s critique of the reign of Augustus in Annals 1.10 LCL and comments that ‘some of Mark’s readers would hear the evangelist making a sharp contrast between Jesus and Roman emperors, whom they believed were using recusatio to mask tyrannical ambition’. Nevertheless, Winn interprets recusatio in its ideal form as on a par with Jesus’ teaching about status and power (2014: 343-44). Winn does not consider, however, the complex dynamics that may be at work between the dominant and subordinated members of Roman society. It may be that Rome and its citizens preserve public appearances in order to preserve their interests. See the work of political scientist James C. Scott, who argues that both the dominant and subordinated members in a power relationship play one part in public and another part in private: on stage they read from a public transcript and backstage they read from a hidden transcript. In other words, both groups adopt certain appearances and rhetoric in public for their own advantages (Scott 1985: 169-78, 282; : 1-6). The Roman strategy of recusatio creates and maintains a system that keeps everyone in their place in order to maintain hierarchical power structures. As a result, it is antithetical to Jesus’ teaching since Jesus calls for his followers to deny themselves and actually to relinquish the power and status they have. Jesus redefines and relocates the meaning of power and status by inverting them.
28.
29.
In Mark’s narrative context, nothing is more of a sacrilege than the rejection of God’s own Son (see 12.8-10, where Jesus corresponds to the rejected cornerstone of the temple). As the desolating sacrilege culminates in the destruction of the temple in Daniel, so Jesus’ rejection and death culminates in the destruction of the temple in Mark. The religious leader’s rejection of Jesus’ authority and their plot to destroy him is concurrent with Jesus’ prophetic judgment against the temple (11.12-25). Later, the veil of the temple is torn in two when Jesus dies, symbolically portraying the temple’s destruction (15.37-38). Jesus’ death is the desolating sacrilege that will require the faithful endurance of his followers.
30.
βλέπετε (13.5); μὴ θροεῖσθε (v. 7); βλέπετε (v. 9); μὴ προμεριμνᾶτε (v. 11); τοῦτο λαλεῖτε (v. 11); φευγέτωσαν (v. 14); μὴ καταβάτω μηδὲ εἰσελθάτω (v. 15); μὴ ἐπιστρεψάτω (v. 16); προσεύχεσθε (v. 18); μὴ πιστεύετε (v. 21); βλέπετε (v. 23).
31.
I see 13.24-27 as a narrative development of 8.34-38, in contrast to Yarbro Collins (2007: 410-11, 614-15), who interprets 8.38 as the Son of Man’s rejection of those who refuse to associate with Jesus and connects this with the gathering of the elect in 13.27, but then interprets 13.24-27 as a salvation without judgment. In addition, my interpretation contrasts with those who take the cosmic images in 13.24-27 as representative of the temple cosmology and symbolic of its destruction (Wright 1996: 339-66; Fletcher-Louis 2002: 117-41; Gray 2008: 148-49). This interpretation does not take into account the hope of the judgment of the wicked and vindication of the righteous that brings a new state of affairs at the end of the age that is represented in apocalyptic literature. The study of supports my position in his investigation of the significance and function of cosmic language in OT, Jewish apocalyptic and Greco-Roman literature for understanding that in the NT.
32.
Similarly, : 116-17) suggests that the teaching in Mk 13.5-37 is aimed at Christians, in order to prepare followers for the time that Jesus would no longer be with them. He points to the presence of the imperative and the absence of questions from outsiders. He also compares the private teaching of ch. 4 to that of ch. 13: whereas the former is about the sower who sows the word, the latter is about the followers who will preach the gospel to all nations.
33.
The language recalls the language of the disciples’ opening question about when ‘these things’ will happen (13.4), and also reflects the language in Jesus’ final exhortation to his followers, ‘Watch, I have told you all things beforehand’ (13.23). ‘These things’, then, includes the desolating sacrilege that signals the destruction of the temple, but other events as well.
34.
36.
37.
I recognize that the origin and meaning of the phrase ‘Son of Man’ are contested areas of scholarship. A discussion of the issues goes beyond the scope of this article. For such a discussion, see Yarbro Collins 1993: 90-112 and : 102-103; 121-22.
38.
For instance, 1 Enoch portrays the Watchers leading human beings into sin, deception and violence (1 En. 10.4-10; cf. 7.2-5; 8.1-4). Jubilees, the Testaments of the Twelve Patriarchs and the Qumran literature portray Mastema/Belial/Satan and his evil spirits seeking to lead people into sin, covenant infidelity and moral failure (Jub. 1.20; 5.1-2; 7.20-33; 10.1-5; 11.1-6; 12.20; T. Reub. 4.11; T. Dan 4.7; T. Ash. 1.8-9; 1QS 2.19; 3.21-25; CD 12.23; 15.7; 1QM 12.2-5; 13.10-11; 14.9-10).
39.
: 14) comments on ‘critical inversion’ as a resistance strategy for helping people to imagine a society ruled by God: ‘The very binary nature of the hegemonic construction of reality … (inside/outside, center/periphery, good/bad, civilized/barbaric, normal/aberrant) also creates the possibility for resistance to hegemony through critical inversion, wherein categories are retained but the hierarchy of values or assignment of value is turned upside down. This inversion is most effectively achieved by recasting myths and revalorizing symbols.’
40.
In this section I do not discuss the content of 8.27–10.45 exhaustively, but seek to establish a narrative pattern by looking at those portions in which Jesus and his disciples interact.
41.
The use of σῴζω in 8.35 indicates that entry into eternal life, or into the kingdom of God, is in view. See 10.17, 23, 24, 25 for the synonymous use of entrance into eternal life, entrance into the kingdom of God, and ‘being saved’ in the same episode.
42.
In 9.1, Jesus promises that ‘some who are standing here will not taste death until they see the kingdom of God, having come with power (ἐν δυνάμει)’. This verse belongs to and completes the previous teaching (8.34–9.1), so that 8.38 describes the negative consequences for some human beings at the end and 9.1 describes the positive effects for others. Cf. : 199-201.
43.
44.
Contra Müller (1992: 220), according to whom 13.37 teaches that anyone who cares for a child such as this acts like Jesus and God; and contra : 42-43), according to whom the child is an ideal disciple. Jesus does not put the disciples in the position of the child until 10.13-16.
45.
In context, τὸ ποτήριον and τὸ βάπτισμα refer to the content of the passion predictions. Also, use of these terms in the Hebrew Bible may provide background, since the cup and water may be metaphors for the wrath of God (cup: Isa. 51.17-23; Ezek. 23.31-34; Ps. 75.8; Jer. 25.15-29; 49.12; 51.7; Lam. 4.21-22; Hab. 2.15-16; water: Gen. 6–8; Isa. 30.27-28; Jon. 2.3-6).