Fascinating as always. There is yet another reason why Mark needed to style Antipas as a king. It is the comment about John under the identity of Elijah in Mark 9:13: "Elijah has come, and they did to him whatever they pleased, as it is written of him." It is nowhere prophesied in the OT that John the Baptist would be killed. His typological forerunner and namesake was (nearly) the victim of the vicious wife, Jezebel, of a corrupt and feckless king, Ahab (1 Kgs 19:1-2). Designating Antipas as a king makes the circumstantial parallel more vivid, justifying the claim that what happened to John had been foreshadowed in Scripture.
I really struggle to understand the consensus that Mark is a bios. Still, this is a super persuasive case that he’s using this particular literary device rather than just being mistaken. Great read!
I don’t have a good answer, I meant “struggle to understand” sincerely, but the fact that gMark being essentially fully narrative scenes seems to be handwaved as “well, that’s a matter of subgenre” when 95% of the genre seems to not work that way is deeply confusing to me.
These scholars know more than me and I imagine I’m missing something. Just haven’t figured out what that “something” is yet.
Fascinating as always. There is yet another reason why Mark needed to style Antipas as a king. It is the comment about John under the identity of Elijah in Mark 9:13: "Elijah has come, and they did to him whatever they pleased, as it is written of him." It is nowhere prophesied in the OT that John the Baptist would be killed. His typological forerunner and namesake was (nearly) the victim of the vicious wife, Jezebel, of a corrupt and feckless king, Ahab (1 Kgs 19:1-2). Designating Antipas as a king makes the circumstantial parallel more vivid, justifying the claim that what happened to John had been foreshadowed in Scripture.
I’m glad you enjoyed it, Darek. And absolutely - a nice further point of connection.
I really struggle to understand the consensus that Mark is a bios. Still, this is a super persuasive case that he’s using this particular literary device rather than just being mistaken. Great read!
Thanks! Out of interest, how would you best characterise their genre?
I don’t have a good answer, I meant “struggle to understand” sincerely, but the fact that gMark being essentially fully narrative scenes seems to be handwaved as “well, that’s a matter of subgenre” when 95% of the genre seems to not work that way is deeply confusing to me.
These scholars know more than me and I imagine I’m missing something. Just haven’t figured out what that “something” is yet.
Fascinating read!
This sparked me to notice a few patterns throughout Mark but I also want to be careful not to over read anything.
Is the feeding of the 4,000 connected to the same synkrisis or does it serve as another type of literary device?