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Tragedy in the Gospel of Mark

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Tragedy in the Gospel of Mark Tragedy in the Gospel of Mark Amelinda Berube Faculty of Religious Studies McGill University, Montréal August 2003 A thesis submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements of the degree of Master of Arts © Amelinda Berube, 2003 Library and Bibliothèque et 1+1 Archives Canada Archives Canada Published Heritage Direction du Branch Patrimoine de l'édition 395 Wellington Street 395, rue Wellington Ottawa ON K1A ON4 Ottawa ON K1A ON4 Canada Canada Your file Votre référence ISBN: 0-612-98416-8 Our file Notre référence ISBN: 0-612-98416-8 NOTICE: AVIS: The author has granted a non­ L'auteur a accordé une licence non exclusive exclusive license allowing Library permettant à la Bibliothèque et Archives and Archives Canada to reproduce, Canada de reproduire, publier, archiver, publish, archive, preserve, conserve, sauvegarder, conserver, transmettre au public communicate to the public by par télécommunication ou par l'Internet, prêter, telecommunication or on the Internet, distribuer et vendre des thèses partout dans loan, distribute and sell th es es le monde, à des fins commerciales ou autres, worldwide, for commercial or non­ sur support microforme, papier, électronique commercial purposes, in microform, et/ou autres formats. paper, electronic and/or any other formats. The author retains copyright L'auteur conserve la propriété du droit d'auteur ownership and moral rights in et des droits moraux qui protège cette thèse. this thesis. Neither the thesis Ni la thèse ni des extraits substantiels de nor substantial extracts from it celle-ci ne doivent être imprimés ou autrement may be printed or otherwise reproduits sans son autorisation. reproduced without the author's permission. ln compliance with the Canadian Conformément à la loi canadienne Privacy Act some supporting sur la protection de la vie privée, forms may have been removed quelques formulaires secondaires from this thesis. ont été enlevés de cette thèse. While these forms may be included Bien que ces formulaires in the document page count, aient inclus dans la pagination, their removal does not represent il n'y aura aucun contenu manquant. any loss of content from the thesis. ••• Canada ACKNOWLEDGMENTS I am indebted to Dr. Ian H. Henderson for supervising this paper and providing valuable insight and editorial advice. Melanie Freeman generously offered me her aid and her expertise in French. I am also grateful to Louis Berube and Corey Yanofsky for reviewing this document and for their suggestions, and I thank them along with the rest of my family for their support, encouragement, and love. TABLE OF CONTENTS ABSTRACT ............................................................ 1 INTRODUCTION ....................................................... 3 CHAPTER 1: Definitions and method ....................................... 5 Previous scholarship ............................................... 5 Problems with the scholarship to date ................................. Il Defining tragedy . 18 Exegesis: applying tragedy and comedy to Mark ......................... 33 CHAPTER 2: Plot and fear ............................................... 35 Plot: the imitation of an action ....................................... 36 Events ........... , ............................. , .......... 36 Organization ............................................... 37 Mark's organization of events ....................................... 40 Conflict in Mark .................................................. 43 Jesus vs. the demonic ........................................ 43 Jesus vs. the religious authorities ............................... 45 Jesus vs. the disciples ........................................ 49 Mark as "interwoven" ............................................. 52 Prophecy and fulfillment ..................................... 53 Repetition and parallelism .................................... 55 Intercalation ............................................... 58 Conclusion - function of an interwoven text ...................... 60 Effects of an interwoven text: irony ................................... 60 Defining irony ............................................. 61 Interwoven plot and irony .................................... 62 Effects of irony ............................................. 64 The threat of tragedy and the plot of Mark ............................. 65 Refuting tragedy .................................................. 66 Conclusion ...................................................... 70 CHAPTER 3: Character and pity ........................................... 71 What is character? ................................................ 72 Characters in ancient literature ...................................... 78 Mark's characters ................................................. 82 The re1igious authorities ..................................... 82 Jesus ..................................................... 87 The political authorities ...................................... 95 The disciples, especially Peter ................................. 96 Minor characters - "little people" .............................. 107 11 Comparing characters ............................................ 113 Conclusion . 115 SUMMARY: Effects oftragedy and comedy in Mark ......................... 116 CHAPTER 4: Matthew and others reading Mark ............................. 118 The Gospel of Matthew ........................................... 119 Matthew's plot ............................................ 119 Matthew's characters ....................................... 124 Mark, Matthew, and tragedy ................................. 127 Papias' Interpretation of the Oracles of the Lord ........................ 130 Mark as Peter's interpreter ................................... 130 M ar k as ,,'ou .. :ta~Et"'/:" ...................................... 131 Conclusion ..................................................... 134 ABSTRACT Can we read the Gospel of Mark as tragedy? How so? With what limits? With what results? 1 depart from previous explorations of the se questions by rejecting their definition oftragedy as a work faithful to the dramatic conventions described in Aristotle's Poetics. 1 build instead on Aristotle's essential definition oftragedy as a work that inspires fear and pity in an audience. Using a narrative-critical approach, which allows a focus on the effects generated by Mark's plot and characters, 1 conclude that Mark, while more tragic than Matthew, is not clearly tragic or comic: the gospel maintains a careful balance of tragic and comic possibilities, challenging the reader to appropriate the story in her own world and tip the scales towards the comic. The effect of the text, however, is dependant on audience; Matthew's rewriting of and Papias' comments on Mark demonstrate that contemporary readers probably did not perceive Mark as tragic. Peut-on interpréter l'Evangile selon Marc comme une tragédie? De quelles façons? Avec quelles limites? Quelles en sont les conséquences? Dans cette thèse, je m'écarte des théories déjà établies et réfute la definition de tragédie comme oeuvre fidèle aux conventions dramatique selon la Poétique d'Aristote. Je considère plutôt la définition essentielle d'Aristote établissant une tragédie comme une oeuvre qui inspire les lecteurs 2 avec des sentiments de peur et de pitié. En utilisant une méthode d'analyse narrative­ critique, laquelle se concentre sur les effets générés par l'histoire et les personnages de Marc, je conclus que son Evangile, tant est-il plus tragique que Mathieu, n'est ni tragique ni comique: L'Évangile retient une balance prudente entre ces deux possibilités, tel un défi au lecteur de s'approprier l'histoire dans ses environs et de le regarder d'une façon plutôt comique. Cependant, l'impact du texte varie selon le lecteur; le remaniement de Mathieu et les commentaires de Papias de l'Évangile selon Marc laissent percevoir que le lecteur contemporain n'a pas perçu Marc comme tragique. INTRODUCTION Among the more perplexing puzzles of Mark's gospel is its bleakness. The gospel's ending at 16:8,1 with the flight of the three women from the empty tomb, has elicited centuries of commentary - both from early Christians, who felt compelled to add 2 longer, happier endings to Mark's original , and from modem scholars, who have pored over the gospel to divine what such an ending might mean if deliberate. This ending, however, is only the conclusion of a text that is startling in its pessimism throughout: Jesus, though the beloved Son of God, faces fear and misunderstanding from every quarter throughout the gospel, even from those who should have been closest to him. He dies alone, mocked and tormented, crying out that even God has "forsaken" him. Even when his predicted resurrection is confirmed by the "young man" at the empty tomb, this good news is apparently abandoned to silence and fear, for the women who hear it say nothing to anyone. Little wonder, then, that literary analyses of the Gospel of Mark have sometimes used the terms tragedy or tragic in describing it - we hear of the "human tragedy" of Mark (Tolbert), or of Mark's "tragic" theme of the suffering righteous (Rhoads, Dewey, and Michie). Other scholars have gone further than such casual use ofthese terms: a 1 Unless otherwise indicated, aIl biblical citations refer to the Gospel of Mark. 2 l follow the majority of scholarship in assuming that Mark's gospel originally ended at 16:8 and that w. 9-20 are a later addition. 4 handful of books and articles have experimented
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