Some of Mark’s Special Characteristics

00:22:19
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R2c98OHsUKU

Ringkasan

TLDRThe video provides an overview of the Gospel of Mark, discussing its intended audience and Mark's literary techniques. It explains that Mark assumes his readers may not be familiar with Jewish customs, as seen in his definitions of Aramaic terms and the use of Latin terms without explanation. Mark's narrative style includes intercalation, where he sandwiches stories to create symbolic meanings, and inclusio, reinforcing themes. The video highlights how Mark portrays Jesus’ actions and teachings, particularly concerning faith, sight, and the nature of the temple, demonstrating artistic storytelling that aims to persuade the reader.

Takeaways

  • 📜 Mark's gospel presents an audience unfamiliar with Judaism.
  • 📖 Uses Aramaic words but explains them, indicating non-Aramaic readers.
  • 🇮🇹 Assumes familiarity with Latin terms, hinting at a Roman audience.
  • 🥪 Employs intercalation to sandwich stories, revealing deeper meanings.
  • 🎶 Uses inclusio to frame narratives and highlight key themes.
  • 💔 Symbolizes the temple's corruption through the barren fig tree.
  • ⚖️ The centurion's declaration highlights ironic recognition of Jesus.
  • 👁️ Explores themes of sight and blindness in understanding Jesus.
  • 🔁 Repetitive predictions stress Jesus’s mission and importance of faith.
  • 🎨 Mark's artistic techniques encourage deep engagement with his message.

Garis waktu

  • 00:00:00 - 00:05:00

    The Gospel of Mark is presented with an assumption that the audience is unfamiliar with Judaism, as Mark provides explanations of Jewish customs and beliefs in the text. This suggests that Mark's readers may not be Jewish or part of a Jewish community, possibly hailing from outside Palestine where these customs were less known.

  • 00:05:00 - 00:10:00

    Mark incorporates and defines Aramaic words to enhance authenticity, indicating a non-Jewish readership unfamiliar with this language. In contrast, he uses Latin terms without definitions, implying that his audience is likely familiar with Latin, hinting at a Roman or Italian background for the Gospel's readers.

  • 00:10:00 - 00:15:00

    Mark's narrative style is highlighted through creative storytelling techniques such as intercalation, where he sandwiches one story between another to draw symbolic connections. This is exemplified by the fig tree and temple stories, where the fate of the fig tree reflects the condition of the temple, suggesting its impending decline.

  • 00:15:00 - 00:22:19

    Mark also employs inclusio, repeating key phrases to create thematic cohesion. For example, he frames the identity of Jesus as 'the Son of God' at both the beginning and end of the Gospel with contrasting perceptions. Additionally, he uses the narratives of blind men to symbolize the disciples' lack of understanding, contrasting their spiritual blindness with the profound faith of those who truly see Jesus.

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Video Tanya Jawab

  • What assumptions does Mark make about his audience's knowledge of Judaism?

    Mark assumes his readers are not familiar with Judaism and explains Jewish customs and beliefs.

  • What narrative techniques does Mark use in his gospel?

    Mark employs intercalation (sandwich technique) and inclusio to convey deeper meanings.

  • Why does Mark define Aramaic words in his text?

    Mark defines Aramaic words to clarify their meanings for readers who are not familiar with them.

  • What is intercalation in the context of Mark's writings?

    Intercalation refers to the technique of sandwiching one story within another to create symbolic connections.

  • How does Mark's use of Latin terms serve his narrative?

    Mark uses Latin terms without defining them, assuming his readers understand them, which may indicate a non-Jewish audience familiar with Roman culture.

  • What does Mark think about the temple in his gospel?

    Mark portrays the temple as having become corrupt and unfruitful, akin to the barren fig tree.

  • What irony is present in the depiction of the centurion at the end of the Gospel?

    The centurion recognizes Jesus as the Son of God at his crucifixion, highlighting a theme of misunderstanding and recognition.

  • How does Mark show the concept of sight and blindness in his narrative?

    Mark contrasts the physical healing of blind men with the spiritual blindness of the disciples and others.

  • What is the significance of repetition in Mark's predictions about suffering?

    The repetitive predictions of suffering emphasize the importance of understanding Jesus’ mission and the necessity of faith.

  • What can we learn from Mark's artistic storytelling approaches?

    Mark's literary techniques invite readers to engage deeply with the text and reflect on the significance of Jesus' life and message.

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Gulir Otomatis:
  • 00:00:00
    Hey everybody, we're gonna be talking about the Gospel of Mark, and giving some kind of basic introductory stuff
  • 00:00:08
    about the gospel. Now, one of the things I mentioned is that Mark sometimes seems to assume
  • 00:00:14
    that his readers don't know much about Judaism. And this is actually true. If you look in Mark
  • 00:00:22
    seven, he actually refers to Pharisees and tells about how Jews eat, you know, eat by washing their
  • 00:00:34
    when they wash their hands, right? They wash the cups, and they wash their hands before they eat,
  • 00:00:38
    which wasn't a necessarily a traditional thing in the wider culture. And so it's as if Mark is
  • 00:00:46
    telling people what this is what Jewish people do, which presumes that Mark's readers don't know
  • 00:00:53
    that's what typical Jewish people do, which probably means Marks readers are not Jewish,
  • 00:00:59
    right? It probably means that Marks readers are somewhere else, then Palestine, or at least are
  • 00:01:08
    not part of Jewish communities themselves when they're reading the gospel, same thing in the
  • 00:01:15
    explanation of Sagesse's beliefs in chapter 12, okay. He assumes his readers don't understand
  • 00:01:22
    Judaism, which probably means his readers aren't Jewish.
  • 00:01:26
    Okay.
  • 00:01:27
    And similarly, Mark defines Aramaic words, which would have been the common language on the street
  • 00:01:34
    in Palestine in Jesus's day. Common Jewish words, in Aramaic, like Boagernes Talitha cum, which means
  • 00:01:44
    little girl get up. Corban, which is a sort of a donation. Ephphatha, which means
  • 00:01:51
    to open, open up. Bartimaeus, which literally means the son of Timaeus.
  • 00:01:57
    Abba which means father. Golgotha, which is the place of the skull where Jesus was
  • 00:02:03
    crucified. Eloi, eloi lema sabachthani, which is Aramaic for My God, my God, why have you forsaken me? Why have
  • 00:02:10
    you abandoned me, which is what Jesus says on the cross. In each of these cases, when Mark uses this
  • 00:02:18
    term, okay, which would have been a term that all people who spoke Aramaic, in Jesus's region of the
  • 00:02:26
    world and Palestine would have understood. They knew it because this was their language. When Mark
  • 00:02:32
    uses this in his gospel, he actually parenthetically explains what the term means,
  • 00:02:37
    suggesting that his readers don't read Aramaic. In other words, that he's adding the term in the
  • 00:02:44
    Aramaic sounding way, right, translating it into Greek so that it sounds like Aramaic, so that it
  • 00:02:51
    adds a kind of authenticity, almost like when we watch a movie today, right about the World War Two
  • 00:02:57
    or something, and you might, if it's an American film, you might hear, you know, German soldiers
  • 00:03:02
    speaking in German with subtitles or something, right? Not because we understand the German
  • 00:03:08
    necessarily, but because it adds a kind of authenticity to the story, to hear the Germans
  • 00:03:13
    talking in German or whatever, right? And so the point is, is that Mark uses these Aramaic words,
  • 00:03:20
    but then actually takes efforts to explain what they mean to his readers suggesting again, that
  • 00:03:26
    his readers are not Jewish, and probably not from Palestine. They're from somewhere else. Now, the
  • 00:03:33
    really interesting thing is that Mark assumes his audience knows at least some Latin terms. In other
  • 00:03:40
    words, when he uses Latin terms like Legion, which was a term that was used oftentimes in terms of
  • 00:03:46
    the military, for example, a legion was a was a large group of soldiers, right, or denarius, which
  • 00:03:53
    was a coin oftentimes understood to be a kind of daily labor's wage. Denarius. Praetorium, which
  • 00:04:02
    was kind of a military sort of gathering point, a garrison of some kind. Centurion, which was a
  • 00:04:10
    soldier who is sort of incharge over maybe 100 soldiers. Century, right. So these terms appear in
  • 00:04:21
    Mark's gospel, Legion, denarius, praetorium, Centurion, these are Latin rooted terms, and Mark
  • 00:04:28
    doesn't define them. That is to say he assumes his readers know what these terms mean. That is a clue
  • 00:04:36
    that Mark is probably or quite possibly being read by people for whom Latin is a very standard common
  • 00:04:46
    language that they'd be familiar with. And it doesn't have to be that way because these terms
  • 00:04:51
    would have been spreading around through the through the Empire. But there's a solid
  • 00:04:56
    possibility that this suggests this gospel has some association with Rome or sort of Italian
  • 00:05:04
    regions where Latin would have been more of the common language. Okay? Now Mark writes in a very
  • 00:05:12
    artistic way, he's very simplistic at one level in terms of his language use, right? He's clearly not
  • 00:05:20
    at home, primarily in Greek. But he's actually quite talented in his use of how to put a story
  • 00:05:32
    together. So I want to give you an example, a couple of examples of some of the ways that he
  • 00:05:40
    writes in very creative and literarily impressive ways, kind of showing his, if you will, his
  • 00:05:52
    narrative sort of art and his narrative artistry. The first term you should be aware of, in this
  • 00:05:58
    regard is called intercalation, intercalation. This is a fancy way of saying, you know, what we
  • 00:06:06
    would call kind of a sandwich technique.
  • 00:06:09
    You could almost think of intercalation is a sandwiching technique. And what this basically
  • 00:06:15
    means is you have two stories, right? Or two accounts of things. Mark is apparently using
  • 00:06:23
    sources that he has heard about, you know, to put together his gospel, different accounts that have
  • 00:06:32
    been passed down, and so forth. And so one story is about Jesus, and how Jesus one time actually got
  • 00:06:38
    mad at a fig tree. This is in chapter 11, of the Gospel of Mark. And he also has a story of how Jesus
  • 00:06:47
    went into the temple and caused a ruckus. And what Mark does is rather than tell the fig tree
  • 00:06:55
    story separately, and then tell the story of the temple separately, each on its own, what he does
  • 00:07:05
    is he actually splits the fig tree story in two, and then sandwiches in the middle of that the
  • 00:07:12
    story of the temple. And so what he's doing here is actually commenting almost artistically, symbolically
  • 00:07:19
    about each of those two things by sort of sandwiching one story in the middle of another. Let
  • 00:07:27
    me read you what happens here in the Gospel of Mark in Chapter 11, to see if you can recognize what's
  • 00:07:33
    happening here. So this is right toward the end of his life, when he's going to about to be
  • 00:07:41
    arrested and so forth. And it says this, it says On the following day, when they came from Bethany
  • 00:07:50
    Jesus was hungry. This is starting at Verse 1 in Chapter 11. Seeing in the distance a fig
  • 00:07:58
    tree in leaf, he went to see whether perhaps he would find anything on it. When he came to it, he found
  • 00:08:04
    nothing but leaves for it was not the season for figs. He said to it, may no one ever eat
  • 00:08:09
    fruit from you again. And his disciples heard it So there's a story of a little fig tree. Now,
  • 00:08:18
    in verse 15, it says this, then they came to Jerusalem, and he entered the temple and
  • 00:08:23
    began to drive out those who are selling and those who were buying in the temple. And he overturned the
  • 00:08:29
    tables of the money changers and the seats of those who sold doves. And he would not allow anyone
  • 00:08:33
    to carry anything through the temple. He was teaching and saying, is it not written that my house
  • 00:08:39
    shall be called a house of prayer for all the nations, but you have made it a den of robbers. And when
  • 00:08:45
    the chief priests and scribes heard it, they kept looking for a way to kill him, for they were
  • 00:08:50
    afraid of him because the whole crowd was spellbound by his teaching. And when evening came, Jesus and
  • 00:08:58
    his disciples went out of the city. So there's a story about Jesus going in and causing a huge ruckus
  • 00:09:04
    to the point where according to Mark, the authorities, the Jewish authorities wanted to find a
  • 00:09:09
    way to kill him, right? Right after the fig story, the fig tree story, but now listen to what happens
  • 00:09:15
    in Verse 20. In the morning, as they passed by, they saw the fig tree withered away to its
  • 00:09:21
    roots. Then Peter remembered and said to Jesus, Rabbi, look, the fig tree that you have cursed
  • 00:09:27
    has withered. And then it goes on. Jesus kind of interprets this as having faith in God and so
  • 00:09:33
    forth. But what I want you to catch is, Mark tells the story of Jesus seeing a fig tree, realizing
  • 00:09:44
    there's no actual fruit on the fig tree because it's not the season for figs. He gets mad at the
  • 00:09:51
    fig tree, curses the fig tree, and eventually the fig tree dies, right? The next day. Now you could
  • 00:09:58
    show that all as one story. Jesus saw no figs on the fig tree got pissed off because he was hungry,
  • 00:10:05
    he curses the tree and the next day it was dead. You could tell the story that way. But what Mark does
  • 00:10:10
    is he sandwiches in to the middle of that story, a story of the temple, right? Is the
  • 00:10:18
    temple going well? Obviously not, they have made it into from Jesus's perspective, nothing more than
  • 00:10:24
    a business. Where people are buying and selling things so that people will have animals to sacrifice
  • 00:10:30
    and so forth. They're, you know, all about this sort of business, but not really focusing
  • 00:10:36
    much, at least from Jesus's perspective on what the temple is supposed to be about,
  • 00:10:40
    namely the worship of Almighty God. And so he's angry about the temple and he goes in. I mean,
  • 00:10:48
    imagine somebody going into the chapel at Saint Mary's and overturning the chairs and the altars
  • 00:10:54
    and throwing everything around the room. I mean, you can imagine that this would actually get
  • 00:10:58
    somebody in grave danger, in great trouble, right? Especially in a first century Jewish context. And
  • 00:11:04
    that's exactly what happens. Okay. Now, why does Mark do this? Well, it seems to be that he uses
  • 00:11:10
    the sandwiching technique, this intercalation technique to essentially, let the story of the fig
  • 00:11:20
    tree comment on the reality of what's happening in the temple at least symbolically, right? Is the
  • 00:11:28
    temple healthy? No. Does it look like it's flourishing? Well, yes, kind of like the fig tree
  • 00:11:34
    looked like it was flourishing. It had leaves and everything right? But is it bearing any fruit?
  • 00:11:40
    Well the fig tree was not bearing fruit? And it looks like from Jesus's perspective, the temple is
  • 00:11:46
    not bearing real fruit, right? In other words, it's not doing what it's supposed to do. It's not
  • 00:11:51
    producing the kinds of real authentic life and worship and, you know, common good that it's
  • 00:12:00
    supposed to, it's basically become, you know, sort of a profit making business for people, right, who
  • 00:12:05
    oftentimes may be exploiting one another. And then Jesus points out that that fig tree withered to
  • 00:12:14
    its roots. What is he saying about the temple? Well he might be saying that the temple has run
  • 00:12:20
    its course, it's no longer the time for that temple, any more than it was the time for figs and
  • 00:12:27
    fruit there. Something has gotten rotten in the temple, sort to speak, and it's going to wither
  • 00:12:32
    away, it's not going to be what it once was. And in many ways, this is sort of a symbolic
  • 00:12:38
    illustration of how Jesus is conflicting with the religious authorities of his time. That's
  • 00:12:45
    intercalation. Another example of Mark's narrative artistry in the middle of the page here that you
  • 00:12:53
    see is called the inclusio or to make an inclusion. And this is the sort of skillful way in
  • 00:13:00
    which an author and we see this all the time in music and poetry and so forth. Can you take us a
  • 00:13:08
    word or a phrase or a theme, and put it at one part, maybe the beginning of, say, a poem or a
  • 00:13:16
    song, and then have that piece repeat later on, so that it draws you back to the beginning, Right? It
  • 00:13:23
    draws the whole thing together, it reminds you of the theme of what's going on in this particular
  • 00:13:28
    piece. I mean, in a certain sense, when we sing, or hear in a musical piece, right, the chorus or
  • 00:13:36
    the sort of the refrain, right, where it keeps coming back to those same lines, in a certain
  • 00:13:42
    sense, that's kind of like an inclusio, right? The chorus pieces kind of wrap everything together
  • 00:13:48
    from the outsides, right? They make an inclusion of everything that's in between. Well, Mark does a
  • 00:13:55
    number of versions of that. I'll give you one example here in Chapter 1, Verse 11, this is the
  • 00:14:02
    scene of Jesus being baptized, right? And the voice of God comes from the sky and basically
  • 00:14:09
    says, in the form of a dove, and basically says, "This is my son," right? This is the Son of God.
  • 00:14:16
    And then at the very end of the gospel, right, despite all the other things that have happened,
  • 00:14:21
    and all of the kind of confusion about who Jesus is, and what the implications of his ministry and
  • 00:14:29
    so forth, then you actually at the very end, when he's being crucified, you get a Roman centurion or
  • 00:14:36
    Roman military officer, who says, "Wow, you know, Behold the Son of God as he's dying." Now, whether
  • 00:14:45
    the Roman military officer really understands this to be the Son of God in the fullest sense, that's
  • 00:14:51
    quite possibly not the case. It could be that he's just saying this is a very godly man. This is a
  • 00:14:57
    man like few others. Right? But not necessarily at the Son of God level. There could be a certain
  • 00:15:04
    irony in in this even, you know, the military opponent of Jesus who's actually killing him
  • 00:15:11
    recognizes even partially perhaps, that this guy is unlike most people he is a Child of God, a Son
  • 00:15:21
    of God, Right? Which was actually in the in the first century basically meant a human being right.
  • 00:15:28
    You know that didn't necessarily meant you were divine in any way. Okay. So that's a use of an
  • 00:15:34
    inclusio, Son of God at the beginning, Son of God at the end kind of to remind the reader who are we
  • 00:15:41
    talking about,
  • 00:15:41
    what are we talking about. Even if it's mentioned at the end in prehaps kind of almost an ironic way.
  • 00:15:47
    Another example of an inclusio appears i Chapter 8 22, through 26. And then the the fini
  • 00:15:55
    h of it is in 10:46 to 52. In each of those sectio s, and I want you to turn to those, what you see
  • 00:16:03
    is Jesus telling stories of blind men. So let me how you 8:22 to 26. It says this, they came to Be
  • 00:16:15
    hsaida, some people brought a blind man to Jesus, and begged him to touch the man. Jesus took the bl
  • 00:16:23
    nd man by the hand, let him out of the village. And when he put saliva on his eyes and laid his h
  • 00:16:28
    nds on him, he asked him, can you see anything? A d the man looked up and said, I can see people
  • 00:16:34
    ut they look like trees walking, which by the w y, is a good indication that he must have lost
  • 00:16:38
    is
  • 00:16:44
    looked intently and his sight was restored. And he saw everything clearly. Then he sent him away to
  • 00:16:54
    his home saying don't go even into the village. So it's interesting here that that Jesus actually has
  • 00:17:00
    to do a healing in which he has to do it in two stages. This is very, I mean, for Jesus, this is
  • 00:17:07
    unusual, right? Normally, he just heals the person and they're fine. In this case, it takes him two
  • 00:17:14
    go arounds before he can actually get the guy completely healed. That's a little odd worth
  • 00:17:20
    noticing. Now let's turn over to 10:46. And look at the another section. In 10:46 It says this,
  • 00:17:29
    they came to Jericho, as he and his disciples and a large crowd were leaving Jericho, Bartimaeus son
  • 00:17:37
    of Timaeus, a blind beggar was sitting by the roadside. When he heard that it was Jesus of
  • 00:17:42
    Nazareth, he began to shout and say, "Jesus, son of David, have mercy on me." Many sternly ordered
  • 00:17:49
    him to be quiet. But he cried out even more loudly, "Son of David, have mercy on me." And they
  • 00:17:54
    called the blind man and saying to him, take heart, get up, Jesus is calling you. So throwing
  • 00:18:00
    off his cloak, he sprang up and came to Jesus. Then Jesus said to him, "What do you want me to do
  • 00:18:06
    for you?" The blind man said to him, my teacher, let me see again. Jesus said to him, "Go, your
  • 00:18:13
    faith has made you well." Immediately he regained his sight and followed him on the way. So there's
  • 00:18:20
    another story of a blind man. So catch the sort of the two stories of blind men, right? The first one
  • 00:18:26
    is a very difficult healing, you might say, a two stage healing. Jesus has to put saliva and, you
  • 00:18:33
    know, mix it up into the guy's eyes, right? On the second, in a two part healing. In the last one, he
  • 00:18:40
    doesn't even have to touch the guy, the guy's own faith heals him according to Jesus, right? All he
  • 00:18:45
    has to do is hear the guy's faith, and the guy becomes healed. Interesting. Okay. Why these two
  • 00:18:54
    stories of blind men? Are they just two healings? Well, yes. But perhaps Mark is trying to do
  • 00:19:00
    something different. Or even more symbolically, and most scholars, myself included, would
  • 00:19:06
    encourage you to check out what comes between 8:26 the end of the passage here, and 10:45. The
  • 00:19:17
    passage here. What you see, if you look at the stuff in between there is a whole series of
  • 00:19:23
    stories of bumbling disciples. Followers of Jesus, religious leaders and others who cannot figure out
  • 00:19:32
    who he is, and are constantly demonstrating that they are blind, at least symbolically, they do not
  • 00:19:39
    get it. They do not understand what they're dealing with. They do not understand Jesus. This
  • 00:19:44
    happens over and over and over again. Right. And so part of what we need to recognize is that Mark
  • 00:19:51
    isn't just saying, well, there's two blind men stories and this one happened on Tuesdays. So I'll
  • 00:19:56
    put it up in Chapter 8. And this one happened on Thursday, so I'll put it in Chapter 10. What he's
  • 00:20:02
    doing here is artistically constructing all of these stories, so that he talks about the need for
  • 00:20:09
    a double, a double healing of a very difficult to heal blind guy. And then a very easy healing of a
  • 00:20:15
    blind guy who actually has faith in between all that is a bunch of stories of people who haven't
  • 00:20:22
    yet developed faith who haven't yet fully overcome their blindness, at least. And so part of what's
  • 00:20:30
    happening is that Jesus is using the outside pieces, the story of blind men, Mark is, to sort
  • 00:20:38
    of characterize the need for people to truly see to lose their blindness, to be healed of their
  • 00:20:45
    blindness in order to understand who Jesus is and what he represents and is up to. And then the
  • 00:20:52
    final thing that also is in that same section is where Jesus oftentimes is described as doing
  • 00:21:01
    things in repetitive cycles. And so one of the things you see here is that Jesus actually
  • 00:21:06
    predicts his suffering and death three different times. And, you know, it's not that this is just,
  • 00:21:16
    again, kind of at the level of factual he did this three times, but it's actually driving the
  • 00:21:21
    narrative the way Mark has kind of constructed the story. Some people have actually suggested that,
  • 00:21:28
    that what Mark had, and I think this is most likely probably the case. Mark have a bunch of
  • 00:21:35
    sort of individual stories that have been passed down and what he did, and then we have some
  • 00:21:40
    evidence that this is actually in fact, what he did, in terms of even testimony from folks early
  • 00:21:46
    on. Is that he sort of constructed a narrative not simply again, in chronological order, Tuesday,
  • 00:21:54
    Wednesday, Thursday, Friday and tried to keep everything factual, in that narrow sense. But what
  • 00:22:00
    Mark is doing is trying to convince his reader of who Jesus is and why it matters to have faith in
  • 00:22:07
    him and what it will look like for those who do develop faith in him. This is not about the
  • 00:22:12
    factoids. This is about a kind of persuasive telling.
Tags
  • Gospel of Mark
  • audience
  • Judaism
  • Aramaic
  • Latin
  • intercalation
  • inclusio
  • narrative techniques
  • faith
  • symbolism