A Myth of Innocence:
Duling, Dennis C
LEAVING ONE'S MARK A MYTH OF INNOCENCE Mark and Christian Origins Burton L. Mack Fortress, $29.95, 432 pp. Dennis C. Duling here is a very widespread view among New Testament scholars that many...
...and that the earliest church continued the apocalyptic emphasis until the march of history made it less viable...
...The cleansing of the temple, the betrayal, the arrest, Peter's denials, the trials before the Sanhedrin and Pilate, and the crucifixion account with its prophecy/fulfillment scheme-all were Markan "fictions...
...It discussions of contemporary research am its synthetic approach to new develop ments are highly informed and informa tive, and the book's implications for think ing about early Christian literature, his tory, and society are revolutionary...
...The role of General Henri Guisan i disputed...
...One shouli not approach this book casually...
...It should be observed (as Mack is fully aware) that not all the building blocks necessary to establish that Galilee was the "epitome of Hellenistic culture" are fully in place...
...In Mark's new apocalyptic myth of origins, Jesus is at once the seer who announced the kingdom to come and the inaugurator of a new group to whom the secret of the kingdom was given, as well as the first casualty of the final cosmic conflict...
...Thosi willing to struggle with it and openl...
...15:3-5) were transferred to the Jesus-group traditions about an authoritative figure who came into conflict with the Jewish authorities...
...Briefly, the Christ-group traditions about Jesus' last meal (1 Cor...
...10:16...
...This is a provocative book...
...MARY GERHART teaches hermeneutics, religion, and literature atHobart and William Smith Colleges in Geneva, New York...
...A book on the topic by the well-known writer Max Fritsch sold out its first printing of 16,000 copies in two days and remains the country's No...
...DENNIS C. DULING is professor of religious studies at Canisius College, Buffalo, trated the violent death of the Innocent Victim and as a justification for his sect's own righteous cause...
...Rather, he was a very distinctive wisdom teacher...
...Those with a more traditional theological perspective may find Mack's whole project in danger of reducing theology to sociology, a common criticism of social history that I do not share...
...and despite the impression left by the Markan Gospel, there were not many Pharisees there waiting to entrap Jesus...
...Intended for "both colleagues and after-hours thinkers at large," A Myth of Innocence formulates a very different argument about Jesus and the first forty years of Christianity...
...as God's judgment on those who had perpeFRED SIEGEL's most recent book is The Roots of Southern Distinctiveness: Tobacco and Society in Danville, Virginia 1780-1865 (University of Northern California Press...
...and the "Christ groups" of the Pauline traditions, located in northern Syria, Asia Minor, and Greece...
...Jesus, however, taught in aphorisms that rested on his own individual authority and personal insight, and like Cynic wisdom (metis), his teaching subtly challenged social norms...
...Traditional proverbial wisdom (Greek sophia) rests on ancestral authority and reinforces cherished social norms and values...
...It is: complex book, brilliantly conceived am dramatically written...
...This transferral gave rise to a miracle-working King/Son of God who was also an apocalyptic Son of Man who functions at the beginning and end of history...
...it was not permeated with conceptions of the Messiah or the kingdom to come...
...Recent research argues that the earliest layer of the source "Q" is "aphoristic" wisdom...
...Also, the Gospel's stress on the one who saves himself by losing himself may occasionally function as a parabolic challenge to the insiders' "triumphalism, pride, or inordinate desire...
...The danger is that America's reappropriation of the myth, its messianic complex to be "the innocent redeemer of the world," and its judgment of others-especially when combined with raw power-have potentially disastrous consequences...
...However, unlike the parable, Mark's story is not open-ended, that is, its apocalyptic framework implies certain knowledge of the final victory...
...In this sequence, the "Jesus groups" of early Christianity attempted to remain within Judaism and proselytize, but were opposed by the Pharisees, were ousted, and ran their course sometime in the fifties or sixties...
...it was not dominated by apocalyptic fervor...
...Part III probes what Mack thinks is the logical outcome of recent research on Jesus' Passion, namely, that Mark himself has created the Passion story, by merging isolated materials from the Jesus and Christ groups...
...For example, in contrast to commonly held theories, Mack marshals arguments to present us with a distinctive view of Galilee...
...nrnhaKh...
...Owen and O 'Brien are no dout correct that the "Initiative for Switzerlan without an Army" will be defeated...
...that Jewish apocalyptic elements in Syro-Palestine could have exerted an impact...
...and that the parables reflect rural peasant life...
...Such musings are in no way meant to detract from Burton Mack's achievement This is a work of major significance...
...The area, in fact, had become "an epitome of Hellenistic culture...
...Mack concludes that "Mark's Passion narrative is essentially an elaboration of the etiological myth of the Hellenistic cult meal through combination with the wisdom story of the persecuted Righteous One as martyr...
...Indeed, Mark saw the destruction of the temple of Jerusalem in 70 A.D...
...ADOLPH SCHALK...
...1 bestseller...
...But I believe Mack's thesis is a catalyst in an important discussion...
...It was not a hotbed of political revolution...
...Mack's historical reconstruction, based on the apocalyticization of "Q" at a literary level, is plausible...
...Correspondingly, Jesus was no political revolutionary, no apocalyptic prophet of the kingdom, and no self-styled rabbi in conflict with the Pharisees of the synagogue...
...While the Hellenization of Palestine is now taken for granted, and while there are archaeologists who are working on Hellenized towns in southern Galilee, there are also those who continue to maintain that there was indeed Pharisaic influence there...
...Its reflections about tin American scene, Judaism, and the worli are thoughtful and important...
...It is true, notes Mack, that through the course of Christian history the myth was often dislodged from its apocalyptic moorings and reimagined, thus functioning in a variety of constructive ways for the churches...
...Mark's myth of origins was not about the historical Jesus...
...11:23-26) and his atoning death and Resurrection (e.g.,1 Cor...
...It i proposal is on the November ballot, has gained support from a sizable fraction of voters (from 24 percent to 37 percent), is backed by the Greens, the Progressives, and a majority of Social Democrats, and is no longer subjected to shrill ridicule but is taken seriously-not least by the Defense Department, which has reduced the discharge age from 50 to 42 and the peacetime strength of the army from 500,000 to 400,000...
...It is also true that a secularized version of its yearning for a new time and a new place has helped to produce an amazing chapter in history, the story of America...
...According to Mack, "The Cynic analogy repositions the historical Jesus away from a specifically Jewish sectarian milieu and toward the Hellenistic ethos known to have prevailed in Galilee...
...consider its thesis, however, will ulti mately find it both challenging and re warding...
...The plot has an ironic twist since the powerful, miracle-working king is crucified...
...Though A Myth of Origins is not primarily a book about Jesus, it begins with and says a great deal about him and his immediate environment...
...The rest of Mack's large volume analyzes the "social formations" of Jesus' followers, the forms of sayings and stories they produced and elaborated as "rationalizations" of their social experiences, and the use made of these forms in the creation of Mark's myth...
...The magazine cites a "truism" o the time-"Six days a week Switzerlam works for Germany and on the seventl day it prays for victory for the allies"-but adds a correction: "Between June 194 and June 1943, Switzerland also workei for Germany on the seventh day...
...Messrs...
...Dennis C. Duling here is a very widespread view among New Testament scholars that many groups in Judaism at the time of Jesus believed that the end of the world was coming...
...but it is also possible that early ideas survive in later literary levels, as in the case of the Gospels themselves...
...In 1940 he urged the Bundesrat t cooperate more fully with the Germans More generally, there was open sympath for the Germans at high army and govern ment levels, and a large Nazi movemer was tolerated...
...that Jesus himself was an apocalyptic prophet who announced that the kingdom was near...
...In brief, Mack contends that Jesus was a teacher from predominantly Gentile Galilee, a countercul-tural figure who combined Hebrew and Cynic wisdom...
...The "Christ groups," however, borrowed Hellenistic ideas of a divinized martyr-founder, left the Diaspora synagogues of their own volition, and survived, their major conflicts having been internal differences with other Jesus and Christ movements...
...The followers, who developed their views largely in the context of early Christian meals, were of two major kinds: the "Jesus groups" of the Gospels, located in Palestine and southern Syria close to the traditional center of Jewish piety, Jerusalem...
...In fact, a more generous application of sociological or cultural-anthropological theory, especially in the area of "group formation," would have enhanced Mack's argument...
...One wonders how Jesus and the early Christians were educated...
...An aside: apart fron the methodological introduction, it, life Mark, has sixteen chapters and its thir teenth chapter deals with apocalyptii eschatology...
...r\nl\7 thf* mpal r*amA frfMYl nrPThe next issue of Commonweal will be dated September 8. Markan tradition...
...it was generated within an apocalyptic sect which had failed to reform the Diaspora synagogues, had become confused about its mission, had developed hostility toward its Jewish opponents, and had withdrawn from the world...
...It documents, among other things that the Swiss supplied three-quarters o their output of aluminum to the Nazis along with arms, foodstuffs, and, not least loans, so that invading Switzerland wouli have been counterproductive for the Gei mans...
...At the moment, this question is probably too directly posed...
...All of these groups, Mack argues, moved from social critique to "social formation," that is, from initial optimistic activity, to struggle and setback, to polemic and compensatory reaction...
...The apocalyptic theory of Jesus and Christian origins is a crucial backdrop for an intriguing new book by Burton Mack of the School of Theology at Claremont, California...
...the dominant apocalyptic view of Jesus was a later, imaginative creation of the early church and especially "Mark," an intellectual who synthesized various traditions and reworked them into document for a small apocalyptic sect in southern Syria just after 70 A.D...
...It is known that he twice me secretly with SS General Walter Schellen berg...
...Mack concludes his book with some reflections on the Markan legacy...
...C (Continued from page 418) respected magazine Schweizerisch Beobachter-which, incidentally, oppose the initiative-has just published a serie of articles on Switzerland's role in Worli War II...
...RACHELLE LINNER, a Boston-based freelance writer (and student of Japanese) is a fan of both the Hiroshima Carps and the Boston Red Sox-in that order...
...Does Mack's thesis provide a viable alternative to the apocalyptic view about Jesus and Christian origins...
Vol. 116 • August 1989 • No. 14
