Locating the Gospel of Mark A Model of Agrarian Biography
Markan geographical “mistakes” are routinely invoked to support the hypothesis that Mark did not live in the Holy Land. Nothing, however, is made of the fact that the writer, probably from a rural, peasant background, and surely with little command of the Greek language, has stocked his work with sp...
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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: |
1995
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| In: |
Biblical theology bulletin
Year: 1995, Volume: 25, Issue: 1, Pages: 24-36 |
| Online Access: |
Volltext (lizenzpflichtig) |
| Summary: | Markan geographical “mistakes” are routinely invoked to support the hypothesis that Mark did not live in the Holy Land. Nothing, however, is made of the fact that the writer, probably from a rural, peasant background, and surely with little command of the Greek language, has stocked his work with specific geographical references, many of which are placed correctly, and some of which are linked correctly in sequence. This article proposes that the so-called “mistakes” are the result of a paradigmatic difference between 20th-century western culture and that of the first-century Mediterranean. The “pre-operatory” (Piaget and Inhelder) concept of spacer characterized by topological (rather than Euclidean, projective) relationships, is both “systematic and lasting” in the developing child. Until cultural pressures demand the shift to “abstract” space, a child functions experientially with notions of proximity, separation, enclosure, etc., in a “plastic,” subjective world. Hallpike finds a similar reconstruction of space among many extant aboriginal peoples, and Sydney Blatt traces this Piagetian development in the history of art. The Rajum Hani‘ stone, found in Jordan and dating from the first centuries CE, suggests that a literate near-contemporary of Mark did indeed grasp space in “pre-operatory” fashion. A model for such a paradigm of geography is presented, which re-interprets Mark's geographical “mistakes,” and then shifts the emphasis to questions of boundary and territoriality (Sack). Two conclusions are drawn: (1) that Mark was probably Judean, and (2) that Mark understood Jesus' travels territorially—as the physical expression of Jesus' lordship over Mark's “world.” |
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| ISSN: | 1945-7596 |
| Contains: | Enthalten in: Biblical theology bulletin
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| Persistent identifiers: | DOI: 10.1177/014610799502500104 |