preview

The Synoptic Gospels In The Gospel Of Mark

Good Essays

Throughout the centuries, from the time of the Augustine, it has not been uncommon for the Gospel of Mark to be viewed in a negative light when compared to the other Synoptic Gospels. It has been said that Luke and Matthew were written in an attempt to cover Mark’s deficiencies. At first glance, this is an understandable viewpoint. To the modern layreader, Mark does seem to flow less evenly and convey less information than its contemporaries. Therefore, among many, Mark was respected for being the first Gospel written and for the precious information it conveyed, but certainly not for its literary elements. This changed in 1982 when Rhoads and Michie released the first edition Mark as Story, which is an analysis of Mark as a work of literature. This, as Mark Allan Powell stated in the afterward, was a new and unexpected way of looking at the Gospels that pioneered a wave of literary analysis in relation to Scripture. Mark as Story is an interdisciplinary approach that views the work through the lens of a story told using ancient oral tradition and analyzes its characters, plot, setting, narrator and original audience. When these aspects are viewed in this manner, it reveals that the Gospel of Mark is, in fact, a literary masterpiece. The authors of the book begin their exploration of Mark as literature by explaining their reasons for doing so. Mark, the first of the Synoptic Gospels, made the decision to convey his beliefs to his audience through the medium of

Get Access