Chronology & Mark : Studies in Mark, Pt. 37
As we all know, the Synoptic Gospels are not in arranged in any strict chronological order. One only needs to sit the Gospel accounts side-by-side to realize this. Today, scholars are more prone to finding a literary arrangement of the materials in each work, as opposed to a chronological one. For example, it has been suggested that each work is arranged thematically. Others have suggested that the Gospel accounts are ordered theologically. I could list many similar arguments but I will abstain from doing so. As a student of Mark’s Gospel, I am becoming more and more inclined to seeing Mark’s work as chronological. I think there are many evidences of this—even literary markers seem to suggest so. In the remainder of this post, then, I want to give some thoughts on why, at my present level of understanding, I think Mark’s Gospel is chronologically arranged. Before I delve into that, though, I should qualify this statement with a couple of comments. Firstly, when I say “chronological” I ...