Mark's cliffhanger

IN HIS FINE article on the ending of the Gospel of Mark, "Unfinished Gospel?" (April 18), John Dart reports the view of Donald Juel (and others) regarding the centurion's confession. These are unsustainable grammatically and miss Mark's point from a literary perspective. Dart reports, "Because the wording is not 'the' Son of God, but should be translated, 'a son of God' or 'God's son,' the comment has been likened to the preceding taunts by soldiers, priests and bystanders."

On the grammatical side, this interpretation makes the common mistake of assuming that the absence of an article in Greek means that the noun is to be treated as indefinite. This is not so. N. T. Wright, in The New Testament and the People of God, comments, "The centurion's statement, in 15:39 is sometimes read as 'a son of god'; but this is a confusion. In Greek the complement does not take the definite article."

From a literary point of view, the exegete should remember that Mark is not a mere reporter, but a historian. Therefore, he cares about the centurion's comment not simply because the centurion said it. Rather, Mark includes the comment because it suits his literary purpose. The theme of the Gospel is that Jesus is the "son of God" in a manner far beyond, but still including, anything that Israel thought of for itself.

James E. Metcalf

Jenison, Mich.

John Dart's article is interesting, but likely to confuse readers. Dart's premise that Mark can be dissected by 20th-century literary criticism does the text a disservice. He identifies with readers who puzzle over "how the good news ever got out," since the women flee from the tomb. The answer to the puzzle lies in what Dart says about usage of chiasm, which was not a memory aid to performers, but rather a literary device common in the Middle East. Chiasms also aided oral transmission.

Mark is not writing the quintessential literary history of Jesus' birth, life, death, resurrection and ascension. Rather he is writing chiastically to a mixed cultural audience. It was well known that Jesus had been born, so why tell the story? Mark doesn't restate the obvious by giving the details of the birth. He stays with the main chiastic story line: Jesus' salvific death as a suffering servant Messiah.

Likewise, it was not necessary to give the details of what happened after the resurrection, since Jesus' followers were all worshiping together, and it was obvious that the word had gotten out. Mark's ending states with chiasm what Paul says in Romans 3:23, "All have sinned and fallen short." Mark shows how all the disciples failed to follow Jesus' Great Commandment, as well as his response to Satan in the wilderness. Apart from God, they could not act; hence the promises that Jesus made would be fulfilled only by the Holy Spirit. The point Mark makes is that all have sinned, just as all need the anointing of the Holy Spirit.

Stephen W. Cornell

Naperville, Ill.

COPYRIGHT 2006 The Christian Century Foundation
COPYRIGHT 2008 Gale, Cengage Learning