Pisteuomen - πιστευομεν - T. Michael W. Halcomb

I am pleased to announce the "Call for Papers" for the "Mark Group" at 2014 annual Stone-Campbell Journal Conference.  For more details see the flyer below.  All submissions related to Mk are welcome. * Please note that 1 paper has already been accepted, which means that we have only 2 or 3 slots remaining open.  

( NOTE: Due to a certain someone attempting to misuse my lecture, I have since removed it. Sorry! ) Here is an audio copy of the lecture I delivered at the conference yesterday. It is titled "Was Mark Framed? Killing the Messenger in Mark's Greek Tragedy". Give it a listen and let me know what you think, I'm hoping to publish this soon in an updated and modified format. (Note: It may take a moment to load. Also, please forgive the poor, lisp-creating quality of audio.) Citation Info: T. Michael W. Halcomb, “Was Mark Framed? : Killing the Messenger in Mark’s Tragedy,” 5th Annual Western Fellowship of Professors and Scholars, Manhattan, KS, October 8-9, 2010.

So, last night as we were working through the LXX text of Daniel 7, we came across an interesting term in verse 19, that is, the word κυκλόθεν. Of course, this adverb comes from the noun κύκλος, which means "circle." So, in Dan. 7.19, we read of an image of a beast stomping or trampling around in circles. In the Gospel of Mark, we get a different adverbial form (I'm not sure if the nounal form appears in the LXX or New Testament) in 3.34. There, were read: "καὶ περιβλεψάμενος τοὺς περὶ αὐτὸν κύκλῳ καθημένους λέγει..." A literal reading is something like: "And he was looking around at those circle-sitting (or, sitting in a circle) around him and he said..." You may have already made the connection but it is this idea of "circling" (κύκλῳ) that originally contributed to the name & practices of the infamous Ku Klux Klan. However, the Klan members actually cannot be credited with creating the name. In fact, they took it from the colle...

One of the things I've realized throughout my first year of PhD work is just how much the average Christian and just how much the church relies on (often without ever acknowledging that they do) and takes for granted its scholars, those who have devoted their lives to studying the Bible. I've experienced resentment of the church as a scholar and I've also experienced resentment of the academy as a pastor and congregant. But the fact remains, the average person, who wants to stay on the "milk level" of study, often despises or looks down on scholars when, in fact, they wouldn't even be able to read their "English Bibles" if it weren't for the faithful who've committed their lives to study and research. Basically, the logic boils down to something like this (which is VERY simplistic): No scholars = No Bible = No Church. So, the next time you see or hear someone bashing scholars, print off the following manuscript (a mock papyri with uncial...

For my independent study with the great David Bauer this summer, I have designed a course titled The Interpretation of Mark. I just received some of my books for that class in the mail, here are four of them (with a 5th added, Through Mark's Eyes , just for fun and not necessary for class):

Below is a .pdf that I created which you can download. It looks at the word economy of Mark's Gospel. In particular, it lists all of the words that appear in Mark's Greek text from most frequent to least frequent.

This weekend I'll be attending the Stone-Campbell Journal Conference where I'm giving a paper titled "Why Jesus Was Baptized: Immersed in Mark's Story & Culture". Here are the schedule and titles of other papers that others are giving, some of them look really interesting! (You may need to use your browser controls to zoom in for reading)

Any day that you get over $400 worth of books without having to pay for them is a good day indeed! UPS, via a prominent theological journal, dropped off Sean P. Kealy's 2-volume set "A History of the Interpretation of the Gospel of Mark: Through the Twentieth Century" and I'm sooooo stoked; I seriously cannot wait to delve into these and write up a review for the journal!!! More than anything, though, I'm just pumped to get to learn from them. Hopefully, I will get to share some of Kealy's wisdom here on Pisteuomen. We'll see how it goes!

I just wanted to let everyone out there know that I started a group on Facebook titled "The Gospel of Mark Group". The group is open to anyone and will deal with all-things-Mark! I will start discussion threads (and have already) and you can too. So, if you haven't joined, be sure to. I think that if you click the link below, you can be taken to the group page (if you have a Facebook account!). Ideally, I think it would be a great idea for those interested in exegesis and interpretation to start a group for each canonical text. This could be a great thing and I hope people get involved! Gospel of Mark Group Here's a list of all who have joined so far (a list which I don't intend to keep updating but am providing just so you can get a feel for some of the people you might get to interact with): * T. Micahel W. Halcomb * Shane Raynor * Owen Weddle * Allan R. Bevere * Tom Verenna * Scott Storie * Mark Goodacre * James McGrath * Tom Vansant * Stephen Carlson * Craig L...

I ran across this interesting passage in an essay I was reading today by, Tat-siong Benny Liew. The article, "Re-Mark-able Masculinities", attempted to explore Mark's definition of masculinity. At one point, Liew says this: "If Plato and Seneca criticize the masculinity of Achilles and Hercules as reckless, ruthless, or even a kind of madness, it is because dominating others may easily turn into an excuse to kill or destroy without control or to be out of control. Note that Mark’s masculinity also demands death as a proof, although it is now the death of oneself rather than that of others. The masculinity that is demonstrated and demanded by Mark’s Jesus before the parousia is partly determined by whether one is willing to endure persecution, suffering, and death." For the sake of argument, granting that this view is correct, it raises a number of questions for me, in terms of both antiquity & modernity, however, the ones that sit at the fore of my mind are:...

I found out yesterday that another one of my paper proposals as been accepted, this time, for the SCJ (Stone-Campbell Journal) Conference (This will be either my third or fourth year presenting at the SCJ Conference). The title of the paper is: Why Jesus Was Baptized: Immersed In Mark's Story & Culture . I must say, though, that in this paper, I arrive at quite a different conclusion than the one I blogged about some time ago ( HERE ).

Since my laptop has been shipped out to HP for a motherboard replacement, I thought I'd swing by the local library and check my email today. I'm glad I did. Waiting for me was a response from Dr. C. Rothschild that my paper for the 2009 Midwest Region SBL was accepted. I will be presenting in the Gospels Section. Here's the title of the paper: A New Reason for Jesus’ Death: Reading Mark Socio-culturally .

Here's a photo of me standing next to all of my Mark articles and books. As you can see, the stack is over 6 ft. tall. Too bad I couln't include some of the stuff I have on my computer too.

As we all know, when it comes to Mark's Gospel, scores of great resources exist. Indeed, even I have enough books and journal articles on Mk. to fill numerous bookshelves. I have vocalized my opinion more than once on Pisteuomen regarding these resources. I have said, for example, that finding a commentary on Mk. that makes new contributions to the field and offers fresh insights, etc. is tough. Having read nearly every major English commentary on Mk., I can honestly say that for the most part, it is all regurgitated information--every commentary sounds pretty much the same. Not only is this problematic in the way of commentaries but when one consults homiletical texts concerning Mk., they find the same things (e.g. the authors of the homiletics books were, of course, drawing knowledge from the commentaries). It is more than clear to me that if you want to find anything new in Markan studies, journal articles (and occasionally monographs) are the way to go. Having said that, I want...

So, I ventured back into Mark’s Gospel a couple of days ago—something that, as of late, I've not been able to do as often as I'd like to. The story I began reading was what is commonly referred to as “The Parable of the Mustard Seed” (Mk. 4.30-34). After I read this story, I remembered one that came just a few verses before it because it shared a lot of the same imagery: “The Parable of the Seed & Soils” (or, as it is also referred to “The Parable of the Sower”…even though it’s not about the sower!!!). This story and Jesus' explanation of it can be found at Mk. 4.1-20. Anyway, a few things had struck me when reading the mustard seed narrative: 1) The mustard seed story is only a few verses after the soils & seeds story, so much so that, Mark leads readers to believe that Jesus tells both stories in one sitting—on the boat, 2) Both stories use the images of birds, seeds and soils, 3) Both stories are parables, 4) Both stories have something to say about the Kingdom o...

Here are a couple of books that I'm reviewing for journals right now: Sean Kealy's 3rd ed. of Mark's Gospel: A History of Its Interpretation and Brendan Byrne's A Costly Freedom: A Theological Interpretation of Mark's Gospel . The former author, Kealy, is one (if not "the") leading scholar on how the Gospel accounts have been interpreted throughout history. His first edition of this work covered Mark through the 19th century, his second through the 20th century and his new one through the 21st. The book by Byrne, which I am quite looking forward to reading is the third in a trilogy on the Gospels. Byrne's typical approach more theological than anything. Anyway, I'm looking forward to reading these books side-by-side and discovering the fruit they have to offer. Anyone read either of these works? If so, what are your thoughts?

I've started working through the Gospel of Mark in German. Other than the fact that my copy of "die Bibel" has a nice apocrypha, it also uses some archaic language here and there (e.g. "thee", "thou", etc.) which makes translating tricky sometimes. Anyway, as I was working through Mk. 1.1-3, I came across a couple of interesting word choices. In Mk. 1.2, the verb "steht", which means "to stand" is used which renders the sentence: "It began, like it stands in/on the prophet Isaiah." There's nothing incredible about this, I just found it to be a very interesting word choice. Typically, the phrase employed is "As it is written..." To say "...like it stands" seems to suggest a more permanent sense. Also, in the reest of that verse we find, "...er soll den Weg fur dich bahnen." This translates as "...he shall strike out a way for thee." Of course, this is referring to John the Baptiz...

In yesterday's post, I mentioned a number of books I recently purchased. One of those was A. N. Williams's John Mark . You can see the cover of that book to the left. What I find very fascinating about this picture is that in it, Mark is holding a number of scrolls. Not that this cover is (by any means) my starting point for ideas or the "say all, end all" of my views, but it does suggest, however implicitly, that Mark probably didn't write first. At this point, I do not think Mark wrote first and in fact, I would also say that it doesn't really matter who really wrote first. Another thing this photo suggests, and I've been pondering this view a long time, is that just as Luke traveled with Paul as an amanuensis, Mark may have done the same for Peter. But one other thing that this photo illustrates for me is that Mark was probably a traveling author. In fact, as I have argued before, I think Mark traveled around delivering his Gospel account as a type of d...

In the commencing verses of Mk. chapter 2, we encounter a terribly fascinating story. I've already approached this episode from one angle, arguing that is suggests that Jesus owned a home near Lake Galilee (click HERE to read that post). I've also argued that this story, as part of a larger narrative, was one that Mark used to begin to show mounting or building hostility towards Jesus by the political and religious leaders of His day. Here, I want to take yet another angle on the story and look at it through carpenter's eyes. Of course, the carpenter I'm referring to here is Jesus. I do not wish to get into the argument about the Greek term "tekton" but I would say that the evidence is clear that it refers to someone who has worked with wood, stone, etc. It is my view that Jesus, indeed, worked in the field of construction. I have wondered too, if being so close to the Lake, He ever helped build boats? But to get to the point, in Mk. 2, we read of an instance...

* Note: Subsequent to writing this post in 2008, I have presented several papers/lectures at scholarly conferences advancing these ideas. Please find those papers for further details on this topic. I have suggested in previous posts that The Gospel According to Mark was, in the main, a performance piece. Instead of arguing that it should be viewed from an oral perspective or a textual perspective, my view is that both must be given consideration. At this point in time, it is my position that what we know as Mark’s account, functioned as a type of script. There are clues within the text (e.g. “let the reader understand”, all of the explanations of Hebrew and Aramaic customs and phrases, the many Latinisms, borrowed Greco-Romanisms, etc.) that have led me to this conclusion. There are also contextual factors (e.g. the great emphasis in the ancient world on the theater, drama, comedy, tragedy, etc.) that act as contributors to my conclusions. I take the position that The Gospel Acc...