I'd hoped to be making a series of posts about various chiasms in GMk, based on the work of Michael Turton. Turton does truly admirable work in teasing out these chaisms and gets a lot right. He has my deep respect. Sometimes however I think he makes a mistake here and there, throwing off the structure of the chiasm in general. However, I'm discovering that these chiasms really can be subtle, and there are numerous questions about how the canonical redactor might have changed this or that pericope, what verses (or even words) are truly original to GMk, and so on. So this project is on hold right now.
But there is one chiasm that I feel confident I have discovered the correct structure for. It's the crucifixion scene itself, and this weekend seemed like an appropriate time to post it. (Yesterday would have been better, of course, but I ran out of time.)
And here it is. Turton's brackets from his own chiasm for the crucifixion are in black capital letters; my revisions are in capital red letters. Where my revisions supplant Turton's work, I have used a strike-through.
But there is one chiasm that I feel confident I have discovered the correct structure for. It's the crucifixion scene itself, and this weekend seemed like an appropriate time to post it. (Yesterday would have been better, of course, but I ran out of time.)
And here it is. Turton's brackets from his own chiasm for the crucifixion are in black capital letters; my revisions are in capital red letters. Where my revisions supplant Turton's work, I have used a strike-through.
A And they led him out to crucify him.
B And they compelled a passer-by, Simon of Cyre'ne, who was coming in from the country, the father
of Alexander and Rufus, to carry his cross.
C B [Missing verse?] And they brought him to the place called Gol'gotha (which means the place of a
skull).
D C
A And they offered him wine mingled with myrrh; but he did not take it.
B And they crucified him,
C and divided his garments among them, casting lots for them, to decide what each should take
E D
A And it was the third hour, when[and] they crucified[guarded] him.
B E And the inscription of the charge against him read, "The King of the Jews."
C F And with him they crucified two robbers, one on his right and one on his left.
E’ B
A And those who passed by derided him, wagging their heads, and saying, "Aha! You who would
destroy the temple and build it in three days, save yourself, and come down from the cross!"
B F' B So also the chief priests mocked him to one another with the scribes, saying, "He saved
others; he cannot save himself. Let the Christ, the King of Israel, come down now from the cross,
that we may see and believe."
C A Those who were crucified with him also reviled him.
E’’ E
A And when the sixth hour had come, there was darkness over the whole land until the ninth hour.
B D And at the ninth hour Jesus cried with a loud voice, "E'lo-i, E'lo-i, la'ma sabach-tha'ni?" which
means, "My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?"
C C A And some of the bystanders hearing it said, "Behold, he is calling Eli'jah."
D’
A And one ran and, filling a sponge full of vinegar, put it on a reed and gave it to him to drink,
saying, "Wait, let us see whether Eli'jah will come to take him down."
B And Jesus uttered a loud cry, and breathed his last.
C And the curtain of the temple was torn in two, from top to bottom.
C’ B
And when the centurion, who stood facing him, saw that he thus breathed his last, he said, "Truly
this man was the Son of God!"
B’ A
There were also women looking on from afar, among whom were Mary Mag'dalene, and Mary the
mother of James the younger and of Joses, and Salo'me, who, when he was in Galilee, followed him,
and ministered to him; and also many other women who came up with him to Jerusalem.
A B And when evening had come…
Comments:
Turton correctly uncovers the key to understanding the overall form of this chiasm: the threefold D/D' bracket. However, he gets the D' half a bit wrong, failing to divide the verse in two, which is understandable because he hasn't quite seen the complexity of what's happening in the interior of the chiasm. This, too, is understandable, because this chiasm is unique in all of Mark's gospel--which is itself not surprising.
But Turton (surprisingly) gets off to a bad start, beginning the chiasm on the wrong verse. I don't understand why he doesn't realize "they led him out", "they compelled a passer-by", and "they brought him to the place" are all different actions at the beginning, nor why he doesn't realize "There were also women" and "When evening had come" are two different statements at the end. Nevertheless, they clearly are all separate actions, following Turton's own rules (again, outlined here) so I've broken it down correctly. (It's true that sometimes two clauses expressing continuous action form a single line, but Mark always tries to avoid this.)
Turton also misunderstands the Golgotha/centurion symbolism, so he has to assume that there is a missing verse from GMk, despite the lack of any attestation for this.
Once he makes it to his C/C' bracket, Turton is on sturdier ground, but then doesn't see how the threefold structure of this C/C' bracket is both replicated and deepened at the center of the chiasm. Once we realize that there are nine verses at the center, and they are lined up and examined for narrative and symbolic parallels, we realize that the center has a remarkable three-times-threefold structure. The end result is quite impressive. We now examine each set of brackets in turn:
A/A' Jesus is led out to be crucified/evening comes after his crucifixion
A fairly obvious framing of the overall event.
B/B' Simon father of Alexander and Rufus carries his cross/Mary mother of James and Joses, who followed him in Galilee, looks on
Also fairly obvious: Jesus has literal followers in each case, and their children are named where appropriate (two children, in both cases).
C/C' Jesus is brought to Golgotha/the centurion facing him calls him Son of God
There is no missing verse, as Turton has supposed. What Turton is missing is the symbolism between the "Place of a skull" and the camp of Legio X Fretensis. Turton, citing Detering, thinks GMk was written around the time of the Bar Kochba revolt, "Golgotha/Kranion" being a reference to the "Capitolinus" in the temple of Jupiter Capitolinus, built on Jerusalem after the defeat of the Second Jewish Revolt (really the Third).
I must strongly disagree. While I agree canonical GMk was a second-century work (possibly dating as late as the 130s though I am skeptical of this), I think that "Golgotha" is original to original GMk, hence must predate Cerinthus' gospel (c. 100CE). "Golgotha" most likely simply represents symbolically the head of the emperor, the ultimate commander of the legion that occupied Jerusalem around the time of the composition of GMk. (It is even possible that the soldiers made sacrifices to either the Roman gods or to the emperor himself in their camp.) Recall of course that Pilate tried to carry effigies of the emperor into the city on at least one (or two) occasions, and Caligula even tried to erect a statue of himself in the temple. "Golgotha" is merely a symbolic reference to these Roman efforts. It doesn't need to be more than that.
The confirmation of this lies in the chiasm itself. Turton either has to presume that GMk is missing a verse resembling Mt 27:36, "Then they sat down and kept watch over him there", to oppose the centurion "who stood facing him" of Mk 15:39, or he has to assume that Mk 15:39 is a later addition to GMk. But we have no textual evidence for either suggestion, hence it seems ad hoc. (We do have a variant of Mk 15:25 which says Jesus was "guarded" [EFULASSON] at the third hour, but it's generally felt this is a later assimilation in the textual tradition to GMt, and regardless it's not the same as KAQHMENOI at Mt 27:36 and is in the wrong location to do Turton's chiasm any good.) But...if we presume, as I do, that the original Markan chiasm has basically been preserved intact in canonical GMk, the opposition works just fine. Mk 15:22, "Golgotha", is opposed to the centurion in Mk 15:39. The "Place of a head" is the camp of the Romans in Jerusalem, really the "Place of the emperor" (and/or possibly the "Place of Mars/Zeus/etc.")
D A B C/D' A B C Wine+myrrh offered, Jesus crucified, garments divided/vinegar offered, Jesus cries out and dies, the curtain is torn
With this bracket, Mark truly begins his masterwork. He has stepped down into the chiasm, and here in the third bracket (or the fourth, if including the A/A' bracket) he has a tripled structure, rare at best in his gospel and perhaps unprecedented. The wine and myrrh were not only a kind of analgesic offered to the suffering victim (this based on Talmudic evidence), but also repesent the kind of wine a king might drink (as Turton explains, citing R. Brown). Jesus refuses, however, consistent with his role as King of the Jews but also with his mission of acting as an unrecognized Messiah. This is probably also meant to remind Mark's listeners/readers of Mk 14:25 and Jesus' vow never to "drink again of the fruit of the vine until that day when I drink it new in the kingdom of God".
The crucifixion itself needs no exegesis. This begins the climax of Mark's story, the moment when the final action begins. It lies at the center of this threefold bracket, and itself introduces the final brackets. If GMk were used as a liturgical document, this would have begun the very height of the liturgy.
The garments are divided. Mark is following Psalm 22. The crucifixion is scripture fulfilled for him, and he wants to make sure the reader understands. The historicity of this detail is irrelevant for Mark; he knows it happened, because Psalm 22 says it did.
E A B C/E' A B C/E'' A B C Jesus is crucified (guarded?), called King, crucified with companions/He is mocked, mockingly called King, reviled by his co-crucified/darkness falls, Jesus despairs and (possibly) mocks God, is said to call Elijah
Now we have Mark's piece de resistance. He began the chiasm in three steps (beginning with either the A bracket or the B bracket), then replicated that threefold pattern in the D bracket itself. Now he repeats that threefold structure in the E bracket, but he takes it one step further--the E bracket itself is only the first part of a larger threefold structure that constitutes what we might call here the E/E'/E'' bracket. Instead of a typical paired bracket, with two related halves, this bracket has a tripled structure, with three parts each of which relates to and comments on the other. This is the very height of the Markan gospel. The effect on the listener paying attention would have been impressive.
Probably the "crucified" reading (ESTAURWSAN) is original here in v. 25, because it comments best on the other A brackets: Jesus is crucified, mocked by the crowds, and then darkness falls. Each brings an escalating sense of despair and doom to the scene. I do tend to personally favor Western readings though, and "guarded" would also work here: Jesus is guarded, just as the legions guarded Jerusalem at its fall and guarded it still at the time of Mark; Jesus is derided for predicting the destruction of the temple--but of course, the listener would know the Fall of Jerusalem would turn this false accusation into a kind of horrible prophecy by the crowds themselves; and finally darkness falls, symbolic of the emotional darkness the legions wrought in the destruction of the temple during the siege of 70CE, and afterwards in their occupation of the holy city.
Next, Jesus is called "King" by the inscription, then "Christ" and "King" by the priests and scribes and taunted to save himself, and then at the end he even asks God himself why He won't save him. This is perhaps truly the heart of Mark's gospel: the message is that Jesus is both King and Christ, and yet he was abandoned, even by God, and himself despaired of salvation. However, in citing Psalm 22, Jesus proves that he was indeed the Messiah after all--both King and Christ--and thus (ironically, perhaps) confirms and triples the appellation "King" begun in v. 26. (We should also hear in Jesus' words the cry of the Jews at the destruction of the Temple and the Fall of Jerusalem in 70CE. This, too, lies at the heart of Mark's gospel, and would have been well-understood by his listeners.)
Lastly, Jesus is crucified with companions beside him, they also mock him, and then--this is very interesting--the crowds say he is calling Elijah. What could this mean? Where is the common thread here?
The key lies in the Transfiguration. Remember that Crossan thinks the Transfiguration was originally a post-resurrection theophany. At the Transfiguration, Jesus is flanked by Moses and Elijah. Now if this were a post-resurrection theophany, this would be very interesting, because Moses and Elijah were both taken up into heaven (Moses in the apocryphal Assumption of Moses). The implication of such a scene at the end of the gospel would have been...that Jesus is just like Moses and Elijah--important enough to be taken up to heaven at his death.
So what Mark seems to be doing here is bringing in that symbolism and inverting it. Jesus is flanked by the two criminals, just as he was flanked by the righteous Moses and Elijah; they mock him, just as Moses and Elijah honor him; and finally Mark makes the symbolism obvious by having the crowd exclaim that Jesus is calling Elijah. Of course he isn't, but Mark knows that Jesus is destined for heaven, just as Elijah was. What Mark has done is allude to the heavenly reward Jesus will receive, even here at the very moment of his death.
(This also explains why the crowd would have made the puzzling link between "Eloi/Elei" and "Elijah"--Mark himself is forcing the link to make a symbolic point.)
There is an alternate way to break out the center bracket, by viewing the E and E' brackets above as simply the first (E1) and second (E2) halves of a single E bracket, then by viewing the E'' bracket as just the E' flip side of the first. Thus the A B C lines of the E' bracket are commentaries on the A B C lines of both the E1 and E2 halves simultaneously. The symbolism remains the same either way, as does the impressiveness of the overall structure, so the choice is kind of up to the preferences of the modern critic. I present this version below, and have indented the B and C brackets to make it a little easier to compare the two halves of the E bracket simultaneously with the new E' bracket:
Mark's crucifixion scene is really a kind of work of art, a prose poem with heightened and often sublte symbolic and emotional impact.
Whew.
There are one or two more interludes I'd like to post in the coming days, and then I'll be ready to explain what the seventh sign was in the Signs Gospel.
Comments:
Turton correctly uncovers the key to understanding the overall form of this chiasm: the threefold D/D' bracket. However, he gets the D' half a bit wrong, failing to divide the verse in two, which is understandable because he hasn't quite seen the complexity of what's happening in the interior of the chiasm. This, too, is understandable, because this chiasm is unique in all of Mark's gospel--which is itself not surprising.
But Turton (surprisingly) gets off to a bad start, beginning the chiasm on the wrong verse. I don't understand why he doesn't realize "they led him out", "they compelled a passer-by", and "they brought him to the place" are all different actions at the beginning, nor why he doesn't realize "There were also women" and "When evening had come" are two different statements at the end. Nevertheless, they clearly are all separate actions, following Turton's own rules (again, outlined here) so I've broken it down correctly. (It's true that sometimes two clauses expressing continuous action form a single line, but Mark always tries to avoid this.)
Turton also misunderstands the Golgotha/centurion symbolism, so he has to assume that there is a missing verse from GMk, despite the lack of any attestation for this.
Once he makes it to his C/C' bracket, Turton is on sturdier ground, but then doesn't see how the threefold structure of this C/C' bracket is both replicated and deepened at the center of the chiasm. Once we realize that there are nine verses at the center, and they are lined up and examined for narrative and symbolic parallels, we realize that the center has a remarkable three-times-threefold structure. The end result is quite impressive. We now examine each set of brackets in turn:
A/A' Jesus is led out to be crucified/evening comes after his crucifixion
A fairly obvious framing of the overall event.
B/B' Simon father of Alexander and Rufus carries his cross/Mary mother of James and Joses, who followed him in Galilee, looks on
Also fairly obvious: Jesus has literal followers in each case, and their children are named where appropriate (two children, in both cases).
C/C' Jesus is brought to Golgotha/the centurion facing him calls him Son of God
There is no missing verse, as Turton has supposed. What Turton is missing is the symbolism between the "Place of a skull" and the camp of Legio X Fretensis. Turton, citing Detering, thinks GMk was written around the time of the Bar Kochba revolt, "Golgotha/Kranion" being a reference to the "Capitolinus" in the temple of Jupiter Capitolinus, built on Jerusalem after the defeat of the Second Jewish Revolt (really the Third).
I must strongly disagree. While I agree canonical GMk was a second-century work (possibly dating as late as the 130s though I am skeptical of this), I think that "Golgotha" is original to original GMk, hence must predate Cerinthus' gospel (c. 100CE). "Golgotha" most likely simply represents symbolically the head of the emperor, the ultimate commander of the legion that occupied Jerusalem around the time of the composition of GMk. (It is even possible that the soldiers made sacrifices to either the Roman gods or to the emperor himself in their camp.) Recall of course that Pilate tried to carry effigies of the emperor into the city on at least one (or two) occasions, and Caligula even tried to erect a statue of himself in the temple. "Golgotha" is merely a symbolic reference to these Roman efforts. It doesn't need to be more than that.
The confirmation of this lies in the chiasm itself. Turton either has to presume that GMk is missing a verse resembling Mt 27:36, "Then they sat down and kept watch over him there", to oppose the centurion "who stood facing him" of Mk 15:39, or he has to assume that Mk 15:39 is a later addition to GMk. But we have no textual evidence for either suggestion, hence it seems ad hoc. (We do have a variant of Mk 15:25 which says Jesus was "guarded" [EFULASSON] at the third hour, but it's generally felt this is a later assimilation in the textual tradition to GMt, and regardless it's not the same as KAQHMENOI at Mt 27:36 and is in the wrong location to do Turton's chiasm any good.) But...if we presume, as I do, that the original Markan chiasm has basically been preserved intact in canonical GMk, the opposition works just fine. Mk 15:22, "Golgotha", is opposed to the centurion in Mk 15:39. The "Place of a head" is the camp of the Romans in Jerusalem, really the "Place of the emperor" (and/or possibly the "Place of Mars/Zeus/etc.")
D A B C/D' A B C Wine+myrrh offered, Jesus crucified, garments divided/vinegar offered, Jesus cries out and dies, the curtain is torn
With this bracket, Mark truly begins his masterwork. He has stepped down into the chiasm, and here in the third bracket (or the fourth, if including the A/A' bracket) he has a tripled structure, rare at best in his gospel and perhaps unprecedented. The wine and myrrh were not only a kind of analgesic offered to the suffering victim (this based on Talmudic evidence), but also repesent the kind of wine a king might drink (as Turton explains, citing R. Brown). Jesus refuses, however, consistent with his role as King of the Jews but also with his mission of acting as an unrecognized Messiah. This is probably also meant to remind Mark's listeners/readers of Mk 14:25 and Jesus' vow never to "drink again of the fruit of the vine until that day when I drink it new in the kingdom of God".
The crucifixion itself needs no exegesis. This begins the climax of Mark's story, the moment when the final action begins. It lies at the center of this threefold bracket, and itself introduces the final brackets. If GMk were used as a liturgical document, this would have begun the very height of the liturgy.
The garments are divided. Mark is following Psalm 22. The crucifixion is scripture fulfilled for him, and he wants to make sure the reader understands. The historicity of this detail is irrelevant for Mark; he knows it happened, because Psalm 22 says it did.
E A B C/E' A B C/E'' A B C Jesus is crucified (guarded?), called King, crucified with companions/He is mocked, mockingly called King, reviled by his co-crucified/darkness falls, Jesus despairs and (possibly) mocks God, is said to call Elijah
Now we have Mark's piece de resistance. He began the chiasm in three steps (beginning with either the A bracket or the B bracket), then replicated that threefold pattern in the D bracket itself. Now he repeats that threefold structure in the E bracket, but he takes it one step further--the E bracket itself is only the first part of a larger threefold structure that constitutes what we might call here the E/E'/E'' bracket. Instead of a typical paired bracket, with two related halves, this bracket has a tripled structure, with three parts each of which relates to and comments on the other. This is the very height of the Markan gospel. The effect on the listener paying attention would have been impressive.
Probably the "crucified" reading (ESTAURWSAN) is original here in v. 25, because it comments best on the other A brackets: Jesus is crucified, mocked by the crowds, and then darkness falls. Each brings an escalating sense of despair and doom to the scene. I do tend to personally favor Western readings though, and "guarded" would also work here: Jesus is guarded, just as the legions guarded Jerusalem at its fall and guarded it still at the time of Mark; Jesus is derided for predicting the destruction of the temple--but of course, the listener would know the Fall of Jerusalem would turn this false accusation into a kind of horrible prophecy by the crowds themselves; and finally darkness falls, symbolic of the emotional darkness the legions wrought in the destruction of the temple during the siege of 70CE, and afterwards in their occupation of the holy city.
Next, Jesus is called "King" by the inscription, then "Christ" and "King" by the priests and scribes and taunted to save himself, and then at the end he even asks God himself why He won't save him. This is perhaps truly the heart of Mark's gospel: the message is that Jesus is both King and Christ, and yet he was abandoned, even by God, and himself despaired of salvation. However, in citing Psalm 22, Jesus proves that he was indeed the Messiah after all--both King and Christ--and thus (ironically, perhaps) confirms and triples the appellation "King" begun in v. 26. (We should also hear in Jesus' words the cry of the Jews at the destruction of the Temple and the Fall of Jerusalem in 70CE. This, too, lies at the heart of Mark's gospel, and would have been well-understood by his listeners.)
Lastly, Jesus is crucified with companions beside him, they also mock him, and then--this is very interesting--the crowds say he is calling Elijah. What could this mean? Where is the common thread here?
The key lies in the Transfiguration. Remember that Crossan thinks the Transfiguration was originally a post-resurrection theophany. At the Transfiguration, Jesus is flanked by Moses and Elijah. Now if this were a post-resurrection theophany, this would be very interesting, because Moses and Elijah were both taken up into heaven (Moses in the apocryphal Assumption of Moses). The implication of such a scene at the end of the gospel would have been...that Jesus is just like Moses and Elijah--important enough to be taken up to heaven at his death.
So what Mark seems to be doing here is bringing in that symbolism and inverting it. Jesus is flanked by the two criminals, just as he was flanked by the righteous Moses and Elijah; they mock him, just as Moses and Elijah honor him; and finally Mark makes the symbolism obvious by having the crowd exclaim that Jesus is calling Elijah. Of course he isn't, but Mark knows that Jesus is destined for heaven, just as Elijah was. What Mark has done is allude to the heavenly reward Jesus will receive, even here at the very moment of his death.
(This also explains why the crowd would have made the puzzling link between "Eloi/Elei" and "Elijah"--Mark himself is forcing the link to make a symbolic point.)
There is an alternate way to break out the center bracket, by viewing the E and E' brackets above as simply the first (E1) and second (E2) halves of a single E bracket, then by viewing the E'' bracket as just the E' flip side of the first. Thus the A B C lines of the E' bracket are commentaries on the A B C lines of both the E1 and E2 halves simultaneously. The symbolism remains the same either way, as does the impressiveness of the overall structure, so the choice is kind of up to the preferences of the modern critic. I present this version below, and have indented the B and C brackets to make it a little easier to compare the two halves of the E bracket simultaneously with the new E' bracket:
E1
A And it was the third hour, when[and] they crucified[guarded] him.
B And the inscription of the charge against him read, "The King of the Jews."
C And with him they crucified two robbers, one on his right and one on his left.
E2
A And those who passed by derided him, wagging their heads, and saying, "Aha! You who would
destroy the temple and build it in three days, save yourself, and come down from the cross!"
B So also the chief priests mocked him to one another with the scribes, saying, "He saved
others; he cannot save himself. Let the Christ, the King of Israel, come down now from the cross,
that we may see and believe."
C Those who were crucified with him also reviled him.
E’
A And when the sixth hour had come, there was darkness over the whole land until the ninth hour.
B And at the ninth hour Jesus cried with a loud voice, "E'lo-i, E'lo-i, la'ma sabach-tha'ni?" which
means, "My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?"
C And some of the bystanders hearing it said, "Behold, he is calling Eli'jah."
Mark's crucifixion scene is really a kind of work of art, a prose poem with heightened and often sublte symbolic and emotional impact.
Whew.
There are one or two more interludes I'd like to post in the coming days, and then I'll be ready to explain what the seventh sign was in the Signs Gospel.
No comments:
Post a Comment