The Rhetoric of Jesus in the Gospel of Mark

Michael Strickland, David M. Young

• Publisher: Fortress Press
• Year: 2017
• Print ISBN:
  9781506433356
• eBook ISBN:
  9781506438474
• Topic: Theology & Religion
• Subtopic: Biblical Criticism & Interpretation

Young and Strickland analyze the four largest discourses of Jesus in Mark in the context of Greco-Roman rhetoric in an attempt to hear them as a first-century audience would have heard them. Their analysis uncovers how the discourses are constructed; what issues each discourse seeks to treat; how the argumentation, arrangement, and style of each discourse contributes to its overall purpose; and how the discourse fits into the overall narrative context of the Gospel. The authors demonstrate that, contrary to what some historical critics have suggested, first-century audiences of Mark would have found the discourses of Jesus unified, well-integrated, and persuasive. They also show how these speeches of the Markan Jesus contribute to Mark‘s overall narrative accomplishments.

4

Whoever Has Ears Had Better Listen! (Mark 4:1–34)

And again he began to teach beside the sea. And the greatest crowd gathers around him so that he was getting into a boat to sit on the sea, and all the crowd was next to the sea, upon the earth. And he was teaching them many things in comparisons. And he was saying to them in his teaching:
“Listen! Look!
The sower went out to sow, and this happened while he sowed:
One fell on the path, and the birds came and ate it up.
And another fell on rocks, which did not have much earth.
And immediately it sprang up, because it did not have
much depth.
And when the sun rose it was scorched, and because did not have
root it withered.
And another fell among thorns, and the thorns grew up and
choked it, and it produced no fruit.
And others fell upon good earth, and they were producing fruit,
still coming up and growing. And one bore thirty, and one
sixty, and one a hundred.”
And he was saying,
“Whoever has ears to hear had better listen!”
And when they were alone, those around him with the twelve asked him about the parables. And he was saying to them,
“To you the mystery of the kingdom of God has been given.
But to outsiders all things come in comparisons, in order that,
‘seeing, they may see, but not perceive,
and hearing, they may hear, but not understand,
lest they repent and it be forgiven them.’”
And he says to them
“You do not understand this comparison?
All the other comparisons: how will you understand them?
The sower the word sows.
These are those on the path where the word is being sown.
And whenever they hear, immediately Satan comes and
takes away the word that was sown.
And these are those upon rocky earth being sown, who
whenever they hear the word, immediately receive it with joy.
And they have no root in themselves, but they are seasonal.
When pressure and persecution come because of the word,
immediately they fall away.
And others are those that among the thorns are being sown.
These are those who hear the word. And the cares of this world,
and the deceit of wealth, and the other desires enter; they choke
out the word. And it remains fruitless.
And those are the ones sown on good earth, who are hearing the
word, and receiving it, and bearing fruit: one thirty, and one
sixty, and one a hundred.”
And he was saying to them,
“Does a lamp come in order to be placed under a bushel or
under a bed?
Does it not come in order to be placed on a stand?
Nothing is concealed except in order to be revealed;
Neither is anything hidden but in order to be brought into
the open.”
“Whoever has ears to hear had better listen.”
And he was saying to them,
“Watch how you hear.
With the measure you use, it will be measured to you, and it
will be added to you.
For whoever has, it will be given to him or her.
And whoever has not, even what he or she has will be taken away.”
And he was saying,
“Thus the kingdom of God is as a sower sowing seed upon
the earth. And the sower may sleep and rise night and day, and
the seed sprouts and grows, the sower knows not how. Of its
own the earth bears fruit. First the blade, then the head, then the
full grain in the head. And when it bears fruit, immediately the
farmer sends the sickle, because the harvest has arrived.”
And he was saying,
“How shall we liken the kingdom of God? Or in what
comparison shall we put it? It is like a mustard seed, which,
whenever it is sown upon the earth is the smallest of all seeds
sown upon the earth, and whenever it is sown it comes up and
is the greatest of all bushes, and it produces branches large
enough for the birds of the sky to nest in its shade.”
And with many such comparisons he used to speak to them the word to the extent that they were able to listen. And without a comparison he did not speak to them, but privately to his disciples he explained everything.^[1]

Jesus’s parabolic discourse in Mark 4 has drawn as much attention as any other section of the Gospel.^[2] Though recently a few interpreters have begun to consider the discourse a unified whole,^[3] the predominant view for the last century has been that the various units in the chapter are awkwardly arranged and that there is no consistent argument developed in the discourse. Form and redaction critics have attempted to discern how the chapter came together by proposing a series of developmental stages, assuming that the various editors of each stage were insensitive to the work of previous editors, resulting in an uneven patchwork effect in the chapter.^[4] Indeed, it has become common to assert that the chapter is fraught with inconsistencies and actually presents two opposing views about the nature of parables. If true, this would make Mark (or Jesus) the feeblest of rhetoricians.

Our analysis of the chapter seeks to show that, historical critics notwithstanding,^[5] the chapter contains a cogent discourse that is stylistically and logically consistent when heard through the canons of Greco-Roman rhetoric. The discourse develops a single argument, and first-century readers would have appreciated its force.

The Rhetorical Unit

The rhetorical unit of the second major discourse in Mark’s Gospel is easy to determine using the criteria extracted from Mlakuzhyil’s work and set forth in the preceding chapter. Dramatically, the major device used to mark the beginning of the section is the change of scene from “the house” in 3:20–35 to “the sea” in 4:1. At the other end, 4:35–36 is transitional, leading to the next dramatic episode in the narrative and to a new scene. The transitional nature of 4:35–36 is indicated both by a time marker (“on that same day, when evening had come”) and by the geographical change implicit in Jesus’s suggestion to the disciples that they go to the “other side of the sea.” Provisionally, then, one can set parameters for the rhetorical unit at 4:1, where the scene first changes, and at 4:34, the last verse before the transition of 4:35–36. Minor support for understanding these as the rhetorical parameters is found in the slight change of dramatis personae from 3:20–35 and 4:35–36. In 3:20–35, the characters include Jesus, his family, the crowd, and the scribes from Jerusalem. In 4:1–34, the characters are limited to Jesus, the crowd, and the disciples. By 4:36, the crowds have been left behind, and Jesus is alone with his disciples in a boat.^[6]

The use of literary/rhetorical structuring devices confirms the parameters of the rhetorical unit at 4:1–34. Though 3:20–35 does not end with a specifically narrative conclusion, it has already been seen that 3:20–35 does end with a rhetorical conclusion—that is, the epilogue of the discourse in 3:33–35. This epilogue would naturally lead the reader to expect an introduction to the next unit, which is found in 4:1–2 in narrative form and in 4:3–9 in rhetorical form. 4:1–2 begins with the formula καὶ . . . ἤρξατο the infinitive, which is elsewhere used by Mark to indicate a narrative introduction (see 2:23 [ἤρξαντο], 6:2, 6:7, 11:15, 12:1).^[7] As the introduction, 4:1–2 sets up the unit by bringing in new characters and a new setting, by giving a time indication (πάλιν), and by summarizing in advance what the new section is about (Jesus’s teaching in comparisons). The presence of the introduction, as both Mlakuzhyil and Kennedy suggest, indicates the beginning of a new unit in the Gospel at 4:1.

The spatial and temporal setting established in 4:1–2 is not specifically changed until 4:35, confirming 4:34 as the end of the unit. Further, 4:33–34 functions as a sort of narrative epilogue to the unit, reaching back to and rounding off 4:1–2 and generalizing about the entire unit and its significance. The su...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title Page
• Copyright
• Dedication
• Table Of Contents
• Abbreviations
• Acknowledgments
• Introduction
• The Discourses of Jesus since Form Criticism
• The Discourses of Jesus as Rhetoric
• Satan Cannot Cast Out Satan (Mark 3:20–35)
• Whoever Has Ears Had Better Listen! (Mark 4:1–34)
• What Defiles a Person? (Mark 6:53–7:23)
• The Marvel of the Coming Son of Man (Mark 11:27–13:37)
• Conclusion
• Appendix: A Brief History of Greco-Roman Rhetoric
• Glossary of Select Rhetorical Terms
• Bibliography
• Index of Modern Authors
• Index of Ancient Literature