While Markan scholarship has paid attention to certain geographical features, Markan spatial references as a whole have not been systematically investigated. This study considers all the spatial designations of the Markan gospel in their interrelations and proposes a pattern of their narrative presentation. The approach taken is based on an adaptation of the methodology of French structural anthropologist Claude Levi-Strauss for analyzing myth as the progressive mediation of a fundamental opposition. A Levi-Straussian model of myth conceives of a mythic text as comprised of various levels, or "orders," which are transformations of each other and of the underlying structure common to them all. This study assumes that a mythic structure may also be operative in a text like Mark which is not, strictly speaking, a myth and seeks to elucidate the mythic structure underlying one of the "orders" of the Gospel of Mark--the spatial order. / After a brief look at other approaches to "space" in the Gospel of Mark (chapter II), attention is given to both the chronological sequence and the theoretical schema of each suborder--geopolitical, topographical, architectural (chapters III, IV, V) and of the integrated spatial order (chapter VI). The relationship of structural exegesis to traditional exegesis is suggested in general terms (chapter I), and specific comments on the relation of the present structural exegesis to redaction critical, literary, or structuralist criticism of Mark are offered (chapter VII). In seeking to locate within a spatial system the action reported and projected in the Markan narrative, the reader may be better able to locate within a theological system the meaning manifested in the Markan gospel. / The fundamental opposition presupposed by the spatial order of the Gospel of Mark, order vs. chaos, is narratively manifest in a series of oppositions moving toward mediation: heaven vs. earth, land vs. sea, Jewish homeland vs. foreign lands, Galilee vs. Judea, isolated areas vs. inhabited areas, house vs. synagogue, environs of Jerusalem vs. Jerusalem proper, Mount of Olives vs. Temple, tomb vs. mountain, the "way." Geopolitically, the opposition Galilee vs. Judea is pivotal, for the traditional values which are assumed up to this point are reversed in the Markan association of Judea, home of the Jewish capital and the Jewish temple, with chaos and Galilee with order. Architecturally, by the close of the gospel no space functions as expected: a house is no longer a family dwelling but has become a gathering place for the new community, replacing the rejected and rejecting synagogue; the temple is no longer a space separating sacred and profane and will become but a rubble of stones not one on another; the tomb is no longer the prison of the dead--dark and closed, but--empty and open--the threshold of renewed life. Topographically, the way or road (hodos) provides both a unifying framework and the key mediation. The threat of the sea, the threat of miracle-seeking crowds and of inflexible religious leaders from inhabited areas, the threat of the tomb--all are met in Jesus by the promise of renewed communication between heaven and earth in the wilderness, on the mountain, and on the way. Hodos signals not so much another place as movement itself. The mediation of chaos and order is a dynamic process, not a static state; it is known in the experience of being on the way. / Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 41-03, Section: A, page: 1088. / Thesis (Ph.D.)--The Florida State University, 1980.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:fsu.edu/oai:fsu.digital.flvc.org:fsu_74150 |
| Contributors | MALBON, ELIZABETH STRUTHERS., The Florida State University |
| Source Sets | Florida State University |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Text |
| Format | 497 p. |
| Rights | On campus use only. |
| Relation | Dissertation Abstracts International |
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