What is it about?
Where and when was the Gospel og Mark written? This question has occupied scholars for generations, since it is an important key to Mark's purpose for writing the first known story of Jesus life, death and resurrection. This article evaluates the most important contributions and suggest that a new approach is needed to the question.
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Why is it important?
The article evaluates all leading proposals and suggest a way out of the impasse the research on the topic finds itself in. It suggests that researchers should avoid circular reasoning by proposing a certain provenance of Mark from certain features of the narrative after which the same features are interpreted by the proposed provenance. Instead we should understand Mark's gospel from within a much broader horizon of inner-Jewish factionalism as well as Jewish-Roman interactions rather than a specific historical circumstance.
Perspectives
The intention behind the article is to make scholars on the Gospel of Mark pause in the at times relentless search for a specific provenance by which the narrative is unlocked and instead begin to read the narrative more openminded.
Morten Hørning Jensen
Fjellhaug International University College
Read the Original
This page is a summary of: Provenance and the Holy Grail of Purpose in Recent Markan Research, Novum Testamentum, December 2020, Brill,
DOI: 10.1163/15685365-12341688.
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