
Mimetic Criticism of the Gospel of Mark: An Introduction and Commentary (Wipf and Stock, 2013)
What if the story of Jesus was meant not just to be told but retold, molded, and shaped into something new, something present by the Evangelist to face each new crisis? The Evangelists were not recording a historical report, but writing to effect a change in their community. Mark was faced with the imminent destruction of his tiny community—a community leaderless without Paul and Peter and who witnessed the destruction of the Temple; now, another messianic figure was claiming the worship rightly due to Jesus. The author of the Gospel of Mark takes his stylus in hand and begins to rewrite the story of Jesus—to unwrite the present, rewrite the past, to change the future.
Joel L. Watts moves the Gospel of Mark to just after the destruction of the Temple, sets it within Roman educational models, and begins to read the ancient work afresh. Watts builds upon the historical criticisms of the past, but brings out a new way of reading the ancient stories of Jesus, and attempts to establish the literary sources of the Evangelist.
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Don’t you mean “Rhetorical Strategies of an Evangelist …”? We all know how much you love Mark, but don’t forget he is only one of four or more.
Hence the added subtitle – Mark is the central figure here, so he is THE evangelist. Plus, it is a working title
Well, I guess your title is a good rhetorical strategy. You should write election material with titles like “Political Strategies of the Candidate: Mimetic Criticism of Obama’s Campaign”. People might start to forget there are other candidates! 😉
What other candidates?
Congratulations
Thanks, Nate!
This is just great. Congrats!
Joel,
Congrats my friend! I look forward to reviewing it when it is released.
Cliff
Thanks, Cliff!
Well done Joel. I am going to assume the first one hundred pages are devoted to explaining the title to dunder heads like me? 😉
Awesome! Looking forward to it!