A Chiasm for Secret Mark

I wanted to take a brief break from discussing the Didache to touch on the Gospel of Mark.  I have been hypothesizing that there was a pre-canonical version of GMk that the Q author used, and since this hypothesis forms a part of my structure for the composition of the Unforgivable Sin logon, this would be a good time to discuss that pre-canonical version of GMk.  I regard this version as identical with Secret Mark, and I'll show one reason why I think so: because Secret Mark exhibits the distinctly Markan features that Michael Turton has uncovered in his online Commentary to the Gospel of Mark.  That is, it shows the same attention to chiastic structures as Turton's Mark does.

 

Michael Turton, in his online Commentary to the Gospel of Mark, argues that the author we think of as "Mark" wrote most of, but not all, of the gospel we call "Mark".  This author wrote a gospel that exhibits two striking compositional features, namely:

a) it consists of pericopes structured in chiasms

b) narrative elements often seem to be midrash on messianic (or related) passages found in Tanakh (aka the Old Testament)

Turton uses this model for Markan features to distinguish what he believes to be "authentic Mark" from additions he considers to have been added by a later redactor.  These additions are few in number, but include passages such as the details about the beheading of John the Baptist, and possibly also some or all of the Little Apocalypse.  Sometimes he finds passages that appear to have once been from the hand of the original Markan author, but which have been heavily revised--the story of the Syro-Phonecian woman, for example, or the healing of the deaf mute.  He also finds some sections that he thinks have been relocated in the canonical, redacted version from their original position, like Mk 7:1-23, the discussion of cleanliness.

In general I support Turton's methodology, though it leads me to different conclusions than he finds.  I think he is right; canonical GMk is a somewhat awkward revision of an earlier document, which was written by the author we think of as "Mark", and which contained all of the linguistic and compositional features we think of as typically Markan.  I disagree with him about the historicity of that document (he finds it more or less entirely fictional), but we'll leave that aside for now.  Instead, I want to focus on the question of Secret Mark.  Turton is a Secret Mark skeptic, whereas I think that Turton's original GMk was Secret Mark.  And I can use Turton's methodology to demonstrate this.

SGM1 features the man raised from the dead by Jesus.  If Turton is right that this was not written by the Markan author, then we should not find a plausible chiasm in this pericope.  Typically, when Turton finds a chiastic pericope, he regards this as confirmation of original Markan authorship; when he does not find a chiastic pericope, he regards this as disconfirmation of original Markan authorship.  I leave aside the question of whether his methodology is sound.  I only claim that if it is sound, then the evidence is that SGM1 is an authentically Markan pericope.

Turton uses the following criteria to break down pericopes found in GMk into chiastic structures:

1. The last line of a chiasm is always the first line (i.e. the first "bracket”) of the next

2. The center of the chiasm is always twinned (sometimes singly, sometimes doubly or triply)

3. The first line is always a shift in location

4. Actions often constitute a new line.

5. Speeches to a single audience in general belong on a single line

6. Speeches may be broken up if the audience shifts

7. An action and a speech can can together constitute a single new line

8. However, in the case of 7., whatever follows the action/speech event constitutes a new line

9. Explanations and restatements (often following GAR) constitute a new line

10. A shift in location constitutes a new line

I should note that there is a kind of “4*” rule: 


4*: Turton often treats statements of being (“So-and-so was there”) as examples of actions.

In addition, there is a kind of overall “eleventh rule” that governs the overall shape of the chiasm.  The chiasm is built out of nestled “brackets”, or pairs of lines.  The first line is paired with the last line; the second line is paired with the second-to-last line; and so on, all the way down to the twinned center (which is its own bracket, or pair of lines, though there is sometimes a more complicated structure at the center involving two, three, or more pairs of lines, or successive brackets, and so on).  And finally there is a kind of interpretive “twelfth rule”, which states that the paired lines in each bracket “speak to each other”, i.e. the paired lines often show important similarities and contrasts in vocabulary and imagery.

We can use these rules to break down SGM1 into chiastic brackets.  And the breakdown is surprisingly simple.  Here at the end of each line we show the rules used to generate each line.

 

A. And they come unto Bethany. (1, 3) 

B. And a certain woman whose brother had died was there. (4*)

   

C. And, coming, she prostrated herself before Jesus and says to him, "Son of David,  have mercy on me." (10, 7)
                       

                                    D. But the disciples rebuked her. (4, 8)

           

E. And Jesus, being angered, went off with her into the garden where the tomb was. (10)

F. And straightaway a great cry was heard from

the tomb. (4)

              

G. And going near Jesus rolled away the stone from the door of the tomb. (10, 8, 2)

              

G'.And straightaway, going in where the youth was, he stretched forth his hand and raised him, seizing his hand. (10, 2)

                                                           

F’.But the youth, looking upon him, loved him and began to beseech him that he might be with him. (4, 7)

           

E'. And going out of the tomb they came into the house of the youth, for he was rich. (4, 10)

       

D'.And after six days Jesus told him what to do (4)

C’.and in the evening the youth comes to him, wearing a linen cloth over his naked body. (7, 8)

B'.And he remained with him that night, for Jesus taught him the mystery of the kingdom of God. (4)

A'.And thence, arising, he returned to the other side of the Jordan. (1, 10)

Now we can examine whether the lines in each bracket “speak” to each other.  We find that they do:

A : Jesus arrives at Bethany

A’: He later departs from Bethany

B : There is a woman whose brother has died.

B’: Later, the brother is alive.

C : The woman approaches Jesus. 

C’: Later her brother approaches Jesus.

D : The disciples rebuke (EPETIMHSAN) the woman. 

D’: Later, Jesus instructs (EPETACEN) the brother.

E : Jesus goes with the woman to the garden tomb.

E’: Jesus goes with the brother out of the garden tomb to the house.

F : The brother cries out to them.
F': The brother beseeches Jesus. 

G : Jesus goes to (PROSELTHWN) the tomb and rolls away the stone from the door. (The youth was buried.)

G’: Jesus enters (EISELTHWN) the tomb and raises the youth. (The youth is raised.)

This is a marvelous chiasm.  If Turton’s methods are valid, here they produce evidence of Markan authorship as much as they do with any other chastic periscope in GMk.  The suggestion is quite strong that the original Markan author is the author of SGM1.

It could, of course, be possible that Morton Smith deliberately forged this chiastic structure—the work of Lund (1942 etc.) on chiasmus in the New Testmanet preceded the discovery of the Mar Saba manuscript.  But it the evidence is equally supportive that the original author of Mark wrote SGM1, just as he wrote most of the rest of the gospel.  My point is only that one way or another, SGM1 is thoroughly Markan.  While this does not prove original Markan authorship of SGM1, it does reduce the evidence that it is a later addition to the gospel.  Skeptics of Secret Mark (including Turton himself) will have to look elsewhere for evidence that SGM1 is not Markan.

Skeptics of Secret Mark might point to SGM2 as evidence of non-Markan authorship, for there is no obvious chiasm there.  We do nevertheless find the following:

A. And he comes unto Jericho. (1, 3)

            B. And the sister of the youth whom Jesus loved and his mother and Salome

were there (4*)

            B’.and Jesus did not receive them (4)

A’. as he went out from Jericho, with his disciples and a great multitude (1, 3)

This is a dissatisfying chiasm, but it is technically a chiasm.  Furthermore I have argued previously that this section of the Mar Saba letter has been misunderstood.  Clement (or Pseudo-Clement) is not, in my opinion, indicating that these words (“And the sister of the youth…Jesus did not receive them”) is all that there is to be found here in the Secret Gospel.  He does not have a copy of the secret gospel with him at all; he only has the memory of it, having read or heard it previously somewhere.  Instead, he is working with a text that Theodore has sent him, of the Carpocratian gospel.  This Carpocratian gospel was apparently a reworking of Secret Mark, and hence still included some passages in it that were removed from canonical GMk.  It included the text of SGM1 in its entirety, and it began with authentic words from SGM2.  But from there it apparently veered into heretical territory, i.e. the “many other things” to which Clement refers.  When Clement writes that the “text adds only” (EPAGEI MONON), he doesn’t mean that the Secret Gospel differs from the canonical text only in the addition of the words he quotes; he means the Secret Gospel includes only the words he quotes from the Carpocratian gospel.  But the Secret Gospel could have followed those words with anything at all.  (And, I argue, it probably did--in fact I suspect what followed next was the anointing of Jesus, most likely in its more original Lukan/Johannine form, where the woman anoints Jesus' feet, though the original chiastic structure is now lost to us.)   In fact Clement is not quoting directly from the Secret Gospel; he is quoting from the Carpocratian gospel, indicating which words from it are found in Secret Mark.   

In all, I see nothing here that indicates an author other than the original Markan author that Turton has uncovered. 




ETA: I should add that the criteria listed above for breaking down chiasms in GMk are not just Turton's; they are, to my understanding, largely those enumerated by John Dart in Decoding Mark, and in turn of course rest upon a long line of scholarship that studies chiasmus in ancient literature in general.  I should also add, although it is not really important, that my goals are rather different than Turton's.  Turton has the overall goal of demonstrating that Mark's gospel is a work of fiction.  While I agree that Mark's work is at least at times fictional (I would argue it is intended as a work of historical fiction, whether or not it succeeds as such), I do not share Turton's goal.  This is not related, however, to the question of whether a chiasm can be found in SGM1.