The Tragic Death of John the Baptist: Reading Mark 6:17–29 with Other Banquet Travesties$dErich B. Pracht
This study sets out to classify the story of John the Baptist’s death in Mark 6:17-29 as a “banquet travesty,” a literary type-scene attested by a range of ancient authors. I will demonstrate that banquet travesties emphasize the pathetic and calamitous deaths that various characters face, with the...
| Main Author: | |
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| Format: | Electronic Article |
| Language: | English |
| Check availability: | HBZ Gateway |
| Journals Online & Print: | Drawer...
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| Fernleihe: | Fernleihe für die Fachinformationsdienste |
| Published: |
Catholic Biblical Association of America
[2021]
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| In: |
The catholic biblical quarterly
Year: 2021, Volume: 83, Issue: 2, Pages: 241-256 |
| Standardized Subjects / Keyword chains: | B
John the Baptist
/ Death
/ Martyr
/ Tragedy
/ Historiography
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| IxTheo Classification: | HC New Testament |
| Further subjects: | B
Historiography
B Bibel. Markusevangelium 6,17-29 B Missionary B John the Baptist B Martyrdom B Tragedy |
| Online Access: |
Volltext (lizenzpflichtig) Volltext (lizenzpflichtig) |
| Summary: | This study sets out to classify the story of John the Baptist’s death in Mark 6:17-29 as a “banquet travesty,” a literary type-scene attested by a range of ancient authors. I will demonstrate that banquet travesties emphasize the pathetic and calamitous deaths that various characters face, with the result that the form-critical categories of martyrdom and court tale should not be applied to John’s story. Furthermore, banquet travesties are imbued with a dense preponderance of moods and motifs familiar from Greek tragedy, which suggests that the high emotionalism of these stories functions to disturb the psyche. The identification, classification, and explication of the banquet travesty type-scene, which occupy the first part of the article, are then applied to John’s story in its Marcan context. Reading Mark 6:17-29 as a banquet travesty reveals that the evangelist has presented his readers with a rhetorically powerful episode that typifies the kind of death early Christian missionaries could face: they could endure a tragic reversal of circumstances, suffer a demeaning and inglorious demise, and be made into spectacles. Despite these possibilities, Mark encourages his readers to continue in their dangerous work, since he views willingness to suffer as a concomitant aspect of following Jesus. |
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| ISSN: | 2163-2529 |
| Contains: | Enthalten in: The catholic biblical quarterly
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| Persistent identifiers: | DOI: 10.1353/cbq.2021.0047 |