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This thesis examines the relationship between Jesus and God in the Gospel of Mark. Against the predominant view since the early 1970’s, it argues that the Markan Jesus is considerably more than a merely human Messiah; he is a divine figure. But he is not placed in a general, Hellenistic category of superhuman or divine beings, nor ascribed only a general transcendent status. Instead, Mark links Jesus directly and closely to YHWH, the one God of Israel. In contrast to many earlier studies of the christology of Mark, which focus on christological titles, this study is primarily concerned with Mark’s narrative and the author’s portrayal of Jesus. Assuming that Mark’s audience were familiar to varying degrees with different traditions of the Hellenistic world, the text is interpreted in its wider Old Testament/Jewish, Greco- Roman, and early Christian context, all the while remaining sensitive to intra-textual links. It appears that the Markan Jesus assumes divine attributes and acts in exclusively divine roles, that he fulfils Old Testament promises about God’s own intervention and coming, and that his relationship to people is analogous to God’s relationship to Israel. It is of particular significance that Jesus in several cases takes on roles which were used to demonstrate someone’s deity or, YHWH’s sovereignty above all other gods. The result is a surprising overlap between Mark’s portrait of Jesus and the presentation of Israel’s God in the biblical and early Jewish traditions and, in some cases, the divine beings of the Greco-Roman world. While early Jewish literature occasionally can ascribe divine roles to a few exalted figures, the Markan description of Jesus is unique in two respects: the majority of the divine prerogatives ascribed to Jesus are without parallel in any of the aforementioned texts, and the number of these is unrivalled. Such a portrait of Jesus may call into question both the true humanity of Jesus (Jesus is not fully human) and the monotheistic faith of Israel (Jesus is a second divine being alongside God), but it is clear that Mark maintains both. The christology of Mark represents a paradox in which Jesus is fully human and, at the same time, in a mysterious way placed on the divine side of the God-creation divide.

<p> Perhaps since its composition, the Gospel of Mark has troubled scholarship with regard to its content and genre. In it, a number of anomalies appear: Jesus' use of secrecy, Jesus' use of the "son of man" title, how the miracles and exorcisms function with regard to plot, and why Jesus never convinces his listeners of his message. In this study, I argue that these anomalies can be explained by considering Mark's Gospel in light of the tragic genre. Mark's Gospel does not simply contain motifs or modes from tragedy; Mark's Gospel is a tragedy. Through the examination of extant Greek Tragedy and an application of Hegel's theory of tragic Kollision, this study illustrates the ways in which the plot of Mark's Gospel is built upon a tragic foundation. Kollision describes how Jesus is in conflict as the tragic hero. Conflict becomes central to this study, in which Jesus is the antagonist to the Temple and the cultural ethos it creates. This antagonism defines Jesus as the Messiah and concealed Son of God, and it produces the suffering and death common to all of tragedy. What is more, this study critically engages with several tragic theories, ranging from ancient to modern. It specifically analyzes Aristotle's Poetics-the standard description of tragic genre-and ask whether Aristotle's categories really do provide an exhaustive definition of ancient tragedy.</p> / Thesis / Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)

The messiahship of Jesus in the Gospel of Mark has figured prominently in modern New Testament scholarship. With the increasing awareness of the Jewish context from which the gospel traditions emerged, scholars have also paid close attention to the way Mark portrays Jesus in relation to the temple. Within these discussions, it is not uncommon to find claims that the Markan Jesus regards the Jerusalem institution as completely obsolete, some maintaining that the message of the kingdom of God in Mark is fundamentally opposed to the ancient Levitical system. Yet, there is not a single full-length monograph grappling with the question of how Mark presents Jesus as royal messiah on the one hand, and his interaction with the Jerusalem priests on the other. Such a project is now imperative, not least given the recent advancement in our understanding both of messianic expectations in the late Second Temple period and of the role of the high priesthood in Jewish polity at the turn of the Christian era. In this thesis, I argue that Jewish messianism from the mid-second century BCE to the late first-century CE anticipated the culmination of the Jerusalem priestly institution under the rule of the royal messiah. In portraying Jesus as the end-time king, Mark in turn assumes a similar expectation. However, contrary to the majority scholarly view, the earliest Gospel does not repudiate the Israelite worship as such. Rather, Mark depicts Jesus’s stance towards the priests in terms of a call to allegiance and warning of judgement. And it is in the light of its cumulative narrative context that Jesus’s criticism of the Jerusalem shrine should be read. To Mark, that is, the temple will be destroyed because the priests have rejected Israel’s end-time king, placing themselves outside the messianic kingdom. Nevertheless, Jesus will be vindicated over against his enemies as God’s messianic son. Chapter one examines important passages from the Dead Sea Scrolls, and chapter two focuses on texts from the Pseudepigrapha. In chapter three, I argue, against recent critics, that the Markan Jesus is indeed a royal figure. Then, chapter four looks at the relevant passages in Mark 1–10 in which the Jerusalem priests are in view. Finally, chapter five investigates the climactic clash between Jesus and the temple rulers in Mark 11–16 in comparison to my findings in the previous chapters.

This thesis describes investigations into the language of rejection used in the Gospel of Mark, employing the methodology of socio-rhetorical interpretation. After describing the history of interpretation of Jesus’ rejection in Chapter I, Chapter II examines how the internal structure of Mark shows the references that relate to the rejection theme and are repeated in sequence. Chapter III explores the conflict issues debated between Jesus and his opponents as the social and cultural texture, in which Mark was written. The three components, Authority, the Law, and Temple, are the main issues in the Gospel. Chapter IV deals with the data of intertexture, a significant influence for the Gospel. Mark borrows rejection language from the Old Testament and ancient Jewish literature as well. In Chapter V, the ideological texture analyzes Mark’s intent responding to his opponents. Mark uses rejection language to warn that those who refuse Jesus as the Son of God cannot avoid the final judgment.

Mark obviously says that all of the disciples of Jesus desert him and flee (Mark 14:50). Mark, however, introduces a young man as a new character who was following Jesus like other disciples and fled naked before Jesus’s suffering. This young man is the most enigmatic character in Mark. In particular, the young man never appears in other Gospels. For this reason, the young man’s identity and his conduct has been a topic of longstanding dispute among scholars. Some regard him as historical figures, one of Jesus’ own disciples like John the son of Zebedee, James the Lord’s brother, or John Mark. They consider him as witness of Jesus. Others take the young man to be symbolic figures like an angel, Jesus himself, Christian initiate, and a representative of disciples’ reality. In this work, I suggest that the young man is Mark’ literary creation by imitating Homeric model of Elpenor. Mark relies on a specific genetic model, not on historical reports of witness or symbolic interpretation. Mark’s literary intention by using Homer’s Elpenor is to substitute his own value for Homer’s. The idea of the afterlife in Homeric epics is replaced to Christianized the concept of the afterlife that is resurrection. In addition, the identity of the young man is Mark’s creation as a stand-in to substitute for Jesus and exculpate him from responsibility for not warning his disciples before the Jewish Temple destruction. According to Mark’s Gospel, Jesus himself told his disciples in advance. Moreover, the young man in Jesus’s empty tomb provides the three women with the message of Jesus to escape from the tragic incident. Therefore, nobody would blame Jesus for the suffering of the Jerusalem Church in Jewish war. The women’s failure to transmit the message doomed Jesus’ followers to the carnage of the war. The identity of the young man in Mark’s Gospel can be detected by considering Mark’s literary model and his mimetic achievement. As a creative and skillful author, Mark imitates well-known model in Greco-Roman literary world. Mark, however, does not just copy of the model; Mark emulates and transforms it to replace the concept of the afterlife. In addition, Mark’s mimetic achievement in the episode of the young man is to convey the supremacy of Jesus by exculpating him from responsibility not saving his followers from the catastrophe. Mark’s Gospel is the response for the issue. In sum, Mark’s dependence on Homer explains the most enigmatic character and scene in Mark.

The aim of this thesis is to consider the formation and reception of the historical Jesus genre through a detailed analysis of its “strong poet,” Albert Schweitzer. Though the classification of this thesis is most likely to be designated as Leben Jesu Forschung and the rise of early Christianity, it encompasses several adjacent fields of research: viz., social and literary theories, philosophies of history, biblical studies, critical memory theory, and classical history. Leben Jesu Forschung is therefore a kind of case study for the construction and reception of ideas. Part One suggests, after a sustained engagement with Schweitzer and his constructive project, that his pervading influence is most strongly felt in the underlying assumptions of his method of konsequente Eschatologie. Schweitzer’s concept of konsequente Eschatologie is the singular criterion by which all the material is judged and filtered so as to construct a singular profile of the historical Jesus. It is this desire for a “tidy” Jesus which this thesis attempts to problematize. Part Two attempts a constructive counter proposal by appropriating theories of memory to historical Jesus research and concludes by demonstrating the appropriation of this theory within the Gospel of Mark. I understand the Markan author as evoking Jesus memories and setting them within a narrative framework for the purposes of identity construction and communal direction. As such, we are presented with an “untidy” Jesus of Markan memory.

The prevailing analyses of the structure of the Gospel of Mark represent modifications of the form-critical approach and reflect its tendency to regard the Gospel not as a unified narrative but as an anthology of sayings and acts of Jesus which were selected and more or less adapted to reflect the early Church's theological understanding of Christ. However, a narrative-critical reading of the Gospel reveals that the opening proclamation, the Transfiguration, and the concluding proclamation provide a definite framework for a close pattern of recurring words, repeated questions, interpolated narrative, and inter locking parallels which unfold the basic theme of the Gospel: the person and work of Christ.

[pt] Esta pesquisa analisa o falar em línguas de Marcos 16,15-18 e o processo diacrônico de evolução teológica sobre o falar em línguas nas literaturas canônicas, onde, o falar em línguas: 1. Num primeiro momento seria uma experiência livre e comunitária de glossolalia; 2. Foi normatizado por Paulo em 1Coríntios, mas, mantendo suas características de glossolalia; 3. Teologizado nos Atos dos Apóstolos sendo vinculado a expansão do Evangelho, porém, sendo vivenciado ora pelos evangelizadores (At 2 igual xenoglossia), ora pelos evangelizados (At 10 e 19 igual glossolalia); 4. Para, enfim, ser pensado teologicamente como um sinal que acompanha os missionários itinerantes na evangelização (Mc 16,15-18). Entender a diacronia do falar em línguas é importante para que se dialogue melhor com esta última proposta teológica que será recepcionada pela tradição da Igreja, e servirá de filtro de leitura e formação de pensamento teológico sobre o falar em línguas para aqueles que lerem ou ouvirem a narrativa sincrônica passando pela alocação canônica do Evangelho de Marcos (promessa de Jesus), Atos dos Apóstolos (início da Igreja) e a Primeira Carta de Paulo aos Coríntios (desdobramento eclesiástico). / [en] This research analyzes the speaking in tongues in Mark 16.15 to 18 and the diachronic process of theological evolution of speaking in tongues in the canonical literature, where speaking in tongues: 1. Initially would be a free and community experience of glossolalia ; 2. It was standardized by Paul in 1 Corinthians, but keeping their glossolalia characteristics; 3. theologized in Acts being linked to spread of the Gospel, however, being experienced now by evangelizing (Acts 2 equal xenoglossy), then by evangelized (Acts 10:19 equal glossolalia); 4. To finally be thouth theologically as a sign that accompanies the itinerant missionaries in evangelization (Mark 16.15 to 18). Understand the diachronic of speaking in tongues is important to improve the dialogue between this last theological proposal received by the Church s tradition, and will serve as a reading filter and theological thought of training on speaking in tongues for those who read or hear the synchronic narrative through the allocation of the canonical Gospel of Mark (promise of Jesus), Acts of the Apostles (early Church) and the First Letter of Paul to the Corinthians (ecclesiastical explanation).

Made available in DSpace on 2016-07-27T13:48:29Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 CAROLINA BEZERRA DE SOUZA.pdf: 1878532 bytes, checksum: 70cf5ba75d2238714508c1bdeaaefd2d (MD5) Previous issue date: 2014-01-28 / This paper aims to demonstrate that, through the Gospel of Mark, a standard set of egalitarian gender relations is developed in the scenes involving Jesus and women, taking the women out of a context of disease, oppression and exclusion and giving them positive characterization. This model of gender relations can be a paradigm for gender relations today and help in fighting violence against women, which is many times legitimated by religious texts and traditions. To do so, it starts with a comprehension of the context, structure and function of the Gospel of Mark. Them, using the gender category and a feminist hermeneutics of liberation, it does a the narratological analysis of the following pericopes: Mark 1:29-31, 3:31-35; 5.21-43, 7.24-30; 12.41-44, 14.3-9, 15.40-16.8. These passages are the ones that have women and Jesus as a historical-narrative subject and contain a criticism of the patriarchal ethos. Finally, understanding the violence against women as a consequence of gender domination, it uses the results of the analysis to propose new ways of being male and female in their multiple relations. Thus, this work intend, through a reinterpretation of biblical texts, to provide material that can help in reconstructing respectful and fair gender relations and in preventing practices of discrimination and violence. / Este trabalho pretende demonstrar que, no decorrer do Evangelho de Marcos, é estabelecido um padrão de relação de gênero igualitário através das cenas envolvendo Jesus e as mulheres, retirando as mulheres de um contexto de doença, opressão e exclusão e dando-lhes caracterização positiva. Esse modelo de relação de gênero pode ser um paradigma para as relações de gênero de hoje e ajudar no combate a violência contra a mulher muitas vezes legitimada com textos e tradições bíblicos. Para tanto, parte-se de uma compreensão do contexto, estrutura e função do Evangelho de Marcos. Faz-se, então, a análise narratológica, utilizando a categoria de gênero e valendo-se de uma hermenêutica feminista de libertação, das seguintes perícopes: Mc 1,29-31; 3,31-35; 5,21-43; 7,24-30; 12,41-44; 14,3-9; 15,40- 16,8. Estas são as passagens que têm mulheres e Jesus como sujeito históriconarrativo e contêm críticas ao ethos patriarcal. Por fim, entendendo a violência contra a mulher como uma consequência da dominação de gênero, usam-se os resultados das análises para propor novas formas de ser homem e mulher em suas múltiplas relações. Assim, o trabalho pretende, por meio de uma reinterpretação dos textos bíblicos, fornecer material que possa ajudar a reconstruir relações de gênero respeitosas, justas e prevenir práticas de discriminação e violência.