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Parables, Secrecy and Eschatology in Mark' Gospel

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  30 January 2009

C. L. Mearns
C. L. Mearns
Affiliation:
St Philip's Theological College, Box 44, Victoria, Mapé, Seychelles
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Extract

The hypothesis advanced in this paper is that Mark applies the motif of secrecy to the understanding of the parables in order to alter their eschatological reference. When Mark interprets the parables explicitly, he does so in such away as to support the overall imminent apocalyptic stance of his gospel. Our point of departure is Mark 4.10–12, one of the most contentious elements in the New Testament, which remains today a challenging crux for scholars. The text runs (RSV):

And when he was alone, those who were about him with the twelve asked him concerning the parables. And he said to them, ‘To you has been given the secret of the kingdom of God, but for those outside everything is in parables; so that they may indeed see but not perceive, and may indeed hear but not understand; lest they should turn again and be forgiven,’

Type
Research Article
Information
Scottish Journal of Theology , Volume 44 , Issue 4 , November 1991 , pp. 423 - 442
Copyright
Copyright © Scottish Journal of Theology Ltd 1991

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References

1 This chapter was delivered as a paper at the British New Testament Conference at King's College, London in September 1986.

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24 C. Tuckett, op. cit., p. 137.

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36 Petersen, W.L., ‘The parable of the Lost Sheep in the Gospel of Thomas and the Synoptics’, NovT 23 (1981), pp. 128–147Google Scholar.

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40 See the brilliant treatment of the transmission-history of the five synoptic parousia parables in the group of ‘Crisis parables’ by Jeremias, J., The Parables of Jesus (revd. edn. 1963, London: SCM), pp. 48–63.Google ScholarManhall, I. H., Eschatology and the Parables of Jesus (London: Tyndale, 1963), p. 47Google Scholar, seems in danger of glossing over the problems posed by the development of the parables during transmission: ‘We may draw the conclusion that the prima facie interpretation of many of them in terms of the parousia of the Son of man after a certain undefined interval is not only the most natural interpretation of them individually, but is also in keeping with the teaching of Jesus as a whole’. For example, he rejects Bultmann's suggestion that the story of the separation of the sheep and the goats was taken from Jewish tradition applied to God himself (p. 44).