Pisteuomen - πιστευομεν - T. Michael W. Halcomb

For the intensive course that I'm going to be teaching at ETC this summer, I've been asked to create "a reader". I've been told that I can either do a traditional "reader" and compile a number of great essays / chapters / articles totaling about 100 pages. Or, I can write my own, which will be about the same length. I'm having a hard time making the decision. What do you all think I should do? Please, share your thoughts with me?

As I mentioned in a recent post , I hosted a sort of weekend retreat into the Gospel of Mark (ch. 1) at my house over the weekend. We had a great time and since Erik asked me to blog on the gathering, I figured that instead of trying to write about everything (and that from my point-of-view alone), I thought I'd share an audio version of a sort of debreifing and talkback session that took place afterwards (Sunday morning at our worship gathering, actually). So, to get a general idea of what took place, give this a listen. If you have any thoughts or comments, feel free to share:

Here are just a few snapshots (hopefully, more will be added later) of Friday night's gathering at my house for study of the Gospel of Mark (called a "Mark Dig" or "Mark Dig-in". The purpose of the get-together was twofold: 1) To enage the text for spiritual/theological edification, and 2) To learn how to do exegesis in community. So, this is not a thing where I just talk for hours on end, no, it is a process whereby the average layperson observes, interprets, draws implications, engages commentaries, dictionaries, linguistic resources, dialogues & then works out some applicatory principes. Tonight, we spent a couple of hours on Mk. 1.1-15 and had a lot of good questions, comments and insights. I'm looking forward to tomorrow's 4 1/2 hours.

I just received Dawn Ottoni Wilhelm's book in the mail "Preaching the Gospel of Mark: Proclaiming the Power of God" which I will be reviewing for a journal. I've flipped through some of the book already and quite like some of what I've seen. In fact, I absolutely LOVE the opening line of this book: "The power of God is on the loose in the world, and the Gospel of Mark proclaims this startling reality as the good news of Jesus Christ." Anyway, I'm looking forward to getting into this work (along with a handful of others). If I come across anything thought-provoking or worth discussing, I'll post on it here.

Saturday morning I leave for a week to lead a group session on Mk. 8-16 at a retreat/conference. I'm quite excited about this and as you might expect, I won't be blogging a whole lot next week. My schedule, as of now, consists of 29 hours of working through the second portion of Mark's narrative (though, I personally don't neatly divide it into 2 sections e.g. chapters 1-7 and the chapters 8-16). Even though that seems like a lot of time to get through the 42 pericopes in that portion of the story, I actually feel like it's still not enough hours! Regardless, this is the task at hand and I'll do my best to achieve the goal before me. After sitting down and working through some planning, here's a rough draft of my schedule: * Saturday: Travel & Prepare * Sunday: 4p-6:30p (Introductions, Recaps, Mk. 8.1-30); 7:30p-10p (Mk. 9.2-50) * Monday: 9:30a-12:30p (Mk. 10.1-52); 4p-6:30p (Mk. 11.1-33) * Tuesday: 9:30a-12:30p (Mk. 12.1-44); 4p-6:30p (Mk. 13...

Here is the audio (pre-recorded) version of the paper that I gave at SCJ today. The title, which partially shares this post's title, is "Why Jesus Was Baptized: Immersed in Mark's Story & Culture". You will note that my view in this paper/lecture is quite different than the view that I offered in Study #10 of my " Studies in Mark " series. Anyway, give it a listen (or click the link below to download the mp3) and let me know your thoughts. Why Jesus Was Baptized: Immersed in Mark's Story & Culture

Here's a sermon that I delivered at the church I'm currently attending. It was last Sunday (Palm Sunday) and covers Mk. 11.1-11. Let me know what you think.

Many thanks to Mark Goodacre for pointing out Syneidon's recent podcast on the Gospel of Mark. In this installation, Robert Foster and Richard Goode from the SYNEIDON Research Project at the University of Birmingham, begin their exploration of this year’s Lectionary Gospel, the Gospel of Mark. This episode looks at the structure and style of Mark, the things which make Mark distinctive from the other Gospels. It also includes the first part of an interview with Professor David Parker (University of Birmingham) who takes us through some of the literary characteristics of Mark’s writing. The podcasts will also feature recommended and books and resources to help further your exploration of a fascinating and influential little book. You can listen to the podcast by clicking the play button on the music player below:

This is the second listing concerning “Key Figures in Markan History” and the first one can be found HERE which covers the years 1900-1949. However, there is some overlap between these two posts as the last prominent person I listed in the previous post was from the year 1942. These are, in my opinion, the key figures in Markan exegesis during this time span. Let me know if I missed anyone you would include and if so, why I should include them. · (1947) Joachim Jeremias: Jeremias was interested in the search for the historical Jesus and is noted for his attempt to get back to the very words of Jesus (ipsissima verba). He paid close attention Jesus’ linguistic mannerisms and wrote a lot on the parables. In his NT Theology (1970) he argued that Mk. is written in primitive Greek and is quite unsophisticated (an argument many would later disagree with). · (1947) Morton S. Enslin: Wrote “The Artistry of Mark” contending that Mark’s “canvas” is laced with creativity and is a beautiful p...

Recently, I have been working through the history of the interpretation of Mark's Gospel in the twentieth century (so, S. P. Kealy). Below is a list, in my opinion, of the "key" figures in Markan exegesis in the years ranging from 1900-1949. Let me know if I missed anyone you would include and if so, why I should include them. · (1900) Benjamin W. Bacon: Bacon is “often called the founder and pioneer of American biblical criticism” despite the fact that he never achieved a PhD and still claims that he could not pass Yale examinations today. He wrote a lot on the Synoptics, an introduction to the NT and a also a work on its creation. One of his most famous Markan works was: The Beginnings of the Gospel Story: A Historico-Critical Inquiry into the Sources and Structure of the Gospel According to Mark . Perhaps two of his most influential works, however, were: Is Mark A Roman Gospel? and The Gospel of Mark: Its Composition and Date . · (1901) William Wrede: Wrede’s influe...

The question raised in the title of this post comes from a question I raised of Brendan Byrne's book "A Costly Freedom: A Theological Reading of Mark's Gospel". There, Byrne asserts that Mark's text is both apocalypitc and eschatalogically-oriented (ch. 1). Though Byrne's view of these two elements differ a little from the ways that they are typically used, I cannot say that I go as far as he does when applying them to Mark's story. Still, that is not the issue I want to raise here. What is interesting to me is that for Byrne, who takes the view that Mk. ends at 16.8, there is precisely no encounter with the risen Jesus BECAUSE Mark (and his community) were eschatalogically-focused. In other words, if I'm understanding his initial chapters correctly, Byrne's arugment is that Mark purposefully excludes a resurrection scene BECAUSE he is more interested in the return of Jesus. Byrne suggests that to include an appearance of a resurrected Jesus would ...

Yesterday I posted a photo of me standing next to my stack of Markan books and articles. Since you can't get a good look at the titles in that picture, I thought I'd upload a sort of photographic bibliography here (it's much easier than typing all of that info. out!!!). Of course, you can't see the journal articles but oh well. Anyway, check out the panorama below. You can use the "hand icon" to forward or backward by moving it left to right and you can zoom in or out on the photos using the small "magnifying glass" icons in the bottom right corner. For the titles that are a bit fuzzy, you can zoom in to get a better view:

A few weeks ago, some good discussion ( here and here , for example) was taking place here at Pisteuomen on the relationship between the gospel accounts of Mark and John. At the heart of those discussions was whether or not the two writers had the Passion & Passover events taking place on the same days or different days. As I showed, I think that the evidence certainly corroborates with the former supposition. One thing I didn't get to discuss in those posts or in the discussion afterwards was Mark's view of Jesus as the Passover Lamb. In my view, the reason this topic is important at all is because people try to assert that the reason John's timeline didn't corroborate with that of Mark's is because John (or Lazarus, whomever wrote that account) had a different theological agenda. The argument is that John's theological agenda was to make sure everyone knew that Jesus was "the" Passover Lamb. Now, it is clear that John's text does go this rou...

While I am quite comfortable with the decisions I've made concerning the beginning of Mark's Gospel, the end has left me in a rather enigmatic state. Lately, I've been wondering if it might be the case that Mark's beginning helps us make sense of his ending? Here's what I've been thinking (and two papers at SBL helped me clarify some issues surrounding this matter, notably, those of Eve-Marie Becker and James McGrath): If Mark's beginning is "Isaianic", that is, drawing on and shaped by Isaiah, then this affects how we understand whether or not 16.9-16 were originally included or not. So, for instance, when Mark quotes Isa. 40.3 at the start of his text, he is surely being purposeful about it. But what is the purpose? My thinking is that, if one goes back to Isa. 40.3 (and the surrounding texts), they will see that Isaiah is concerned with "the sin of the people being paid for", a comforting message, "the glory of the Lord revealed...

So, if you're reading this, I'm probably en route to MI right now from Boston. SBL is over and now, it's back to family, work, etc. It's also time to read. In addition to the other books that I picked up at SBL, on my way out yesterday, I picked up a terribly unique book on the Gospel of Mark. I've never seen anything like this. It's Steve Ross's Marked . This book is insane! It is a comic book retelling of Mark's story, kind of arranged in a modern setting (see an example of a page to the left). I'm already a few pages in (and trying to adjust to this type of reading, which I have never been fond of!) but I like it...in an odd way. I hope to post a bit more about it in the near future. Anyway, SBL was good and I hope to post some more on that soon too. Blessings to everyone!

In the Gospel of Mark, there is just something about Jesus’ words. Some people attribute power and authority to His words while others consider them blasphemous and troubling. It is this tension that keeps Mark’s drama interesting. The reader/listener is drawn into the story because they want to see what else Jesus has to say and how certain persons will react to His words. So, while Jesus Himself is the centerpiece of Mark’s account, Jesus’ words, in all reality, probably assume the same, if not, in some ways, a greater role. If Jesus had never spoken, Mark would hardly have a story. Therefore, everything hinges on what Jesus says—His words. This got me thinking about Jesus’ statement in 13.30 that “Heaven and earth will pass by but my words will not pass by”. (If you are interested in why I translate “pareleusontai” as “pass by” instead of “pass away”, see study #62 in this series.) What does Jesus mean when He says this? Are His words frozen in time? Are His words static? How are we...

While Mk. 13 certainly sounds apocalyptic (many have dubbed it the “Little Apocalypse; e.g. Colani, Wiffenbach) and quite eschatological (many have suggested it is about the End Times), and while I will most certainly be seen as something as a nuisance for saying what I am about to, I wish to share a different view. I do not think Jesus is being overtly apocalyptic or eschatological in Mk. 13. Yes, there are some statements Jesus makes that seem apocalyptic in nature but in the end, I am wholly unconvinced that what Jesus is saying is meant to be taken in the sense of apocalyptic. If we go by the SBL definition of apocalyptic, building on the work of T. R. Hatina, I can come up with over 15 reasons as to why Mk. 13 doesn’t fit the bill as apocalyptic (e.g. no revelation given from an otherworldly being, no transcendent/supernatural world mentioned, Jesus says the “end is not yet” – something contrary to apocalyptic lit., etc.). So, I do not believe that Jesus is being overtly apocalypt...

Below are sixty-two posts from my "Studies in Mark" series. Hope you've enjoyed reading them as much as I have enjoyed writing them. (Feel free to engage past posts any time and I will readily respond.) *A Markan Precursor - Did Jesus own a home? #1 - Did the Disciples Know Jesus Before He "Called" Them? #2 - Mark's Sleepy Jesus (& Extra Boats) #3 - Mark's Indignant Ihsou #4 - The Rhetorical Jesus: A Fresh Look at Mk. 4.24-25 #5 - Who is the "Strong Man" in Mark's Gospel? #6 - A Surrogate Genealogy in Mk? #7 - The "Mystery" of the Kingdom #8 - OT Referents Early on in Mark #9 - Staring Death and Life in the Face #10 - Why Was Jesus Baptized? #11 - The "Unforgivable Sin" in Mark's Account #12 - Who, According to Mark, Was Jairus #13 - Do the Gospels Contradict Each Other? #14 - Criticizing Christ #15 - Tyrant Tales & Assessing Application #16 - The Feeding and Teaching of the 5,000...Zealots #17 - Jesu...

To read Mark’s Gospel is, in some ways, to meet an interesting cast of creaturely characters. In chapter one there is mention of camels, locusts, wild beasts, snakes and fish (which are mentioned at a few other points in the narrative). In chapter four birds are focused on. In chapter five, the reader encounters pigs and one chapter later there is mention of sheep. The seventh chapter claims mention of a dog, the ninth a worm, the eleventh both a colt and a dove and the thirteenth a rooster. In chapter 14, a lamb is spoken of and once again a rooster. In chapter 16, we find the last mention of an animal, which is a snake. Perhaps PETA could try to make some kind of case from all of this that Jesus was an animal lover (although he did send some pigs over the cliff—but then again, some pigs can swim!). Anyway, this has all led me to ponder a bit more deeply, Jesus’ statement to the Syro-Phoenician woman in 7.27 who interrupted Jesus (probably while eating) and begged Him to drive a demon...

So, this is my 60th “study” on Mark. I think that’s pretty cool. I’ve enjoyed writing on Mark’s Gospel so far and hopefully there will be many, many more posts on it. In this post, I want us to think about a phrase that occurs twice in Mark’s Gospel: “The Son of Man must suffer…” (8.31; 9.12). Typically, this phrase is read through the lens of divine determinism: “God the Father made evil things happen so that Jesus would undergo suffering and redeem humanity.” However, there is another way to think through such passages. For instance, if we read the Gospel narratives closely, we see that at the beginning of His ministry, Jesus is aware that the religious and political leaders are plotting to take His life (see: Mk. 3.6 and especially, its parallel Mt. 12.14-5). In both Mk. and Mt., Jesus knows that His neck is on the line. Even so, He continues on in His ministry (e.g. teaching, healing, miracles/wonders, etc.). Thus, we might read the passages that say “The Son of Man must suffer” no...