RBL 10/2002 Broadhead, Edwin K. Mark Readings: A New Biblical Commentary Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 2001. Pp.

163, Cloth, $57.50, ISBN 1841271888. Elizabeth Struthers Malbon Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University Blacksburg, VA 24061

Throughout this short but full-packed book, Edwin Broadhead refers not to the implied reader, a term commonly used by narrative critics, but to the alert reader or the attentive reader. The term is an apt description of Broadhead himself, who, as he points out in the Preface, has been attending to reading Marks Gospel for a decade. The titles of his three previous books on Mark (all also published by Sheffield) are worth mentioning here because their echoes are heard in the present commentary on Mark: Teaching with Authority: Miracles and Christology in the Gospel of Mark, Narrative Form and Function in Mark 14-16, and Naming Jesus: Titular Christology in the Gospel of Mark. Miracles, christology, and form are dominant themes in the current book. In fact, I would judge Broadheads dominant sensibility here to be not narrative critical, as he indicates in the Preface (pp. 14, 20), but form critical. Broadhead does, of course, discuss issues of plot, setting, characterization, and rhetoric, but form critical comments are equally frequent. Furthermore, Broadhead explicitly identifies the literary form that dominates this Gospel [as] the miracle story (p. 92). Broadheads more cautious observation, that The most frequent story type is the miracle story (p. 140) would be easier to defend, for some scholars have argued well that the literary form that most influences Marks Gospel is not miracle but parable. Thus Broadheads commentary on Mark seems to be a rich condensation of his previous readings. Two explicit observations Broadhead makes of the attentive reader certainly apply to his work here. First, The attentive reader has learned to read reflectively: stories within stories interpret each other; cycles of repetition are employed; scenes are interpreted by previous accounts (p. 127). Even the way Broadhead has organized the chapters of his commentary makes plain such reflective reading. Broadhead treats Mark 1.1-20: The Gospel Begins as an opening that stakes out the story (1:1-8), stakes out the identity of Jesus (1:9-13), and stakes out the ministry and message of Jesus (1:14-20). After this opening Marks material is organized by Broadhead into eight acts, each with a varying number of scenes. The first three acts, which are considered generally parallel, establish the ministry of Jesus in Galilee: Mark 1.21-3.7a: The Authority of

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Jesus, Mark 3.7-6.6: Parables and Signs, Mark 6.6b-8.27a: Beyond the Borders. The fourth act, Mark 8.27-10.52: From the Galilee to Jerusalem, describes the difficulty of discipleship and defines Jesus as the one who suffers and serves and dies (p. 102). Act five, Mark 11.1-13.37: Ministry in Jerusalem, shapes the story to the ethos of a new settingJerusalem where conflict between Jesus and the religious leadership of Israel dominates the scenes (p. 102). The final three acts present the passion of Jesus Mark 14.1-42: The Preparation and Betrayal, Mark 14.43-15.15: The Arrest and Trial, Mark 15.16-16.8: The Death of Jesus. Scholarly outlines of Mark are legion and disagreements legendary, especially for Mark 1-8, but Broadheads divisions are exegetically interesting, even though they (like all such divisions) hide some relationships in the process of highlighting others. Second, The attentive reader also knows that the world of this Gospel is framed against the world of the Hebrew Scriptures (p. 127). Broadhead is an attentive reader in this area too, listing and discussing briefly many Markan citations and allusions to the Hebrew Scriptures. I was surprised, however, at a number of places where Broadhead did not seem to me an attentive readeralthough it would probably be equally accurate to say that at those places he and I are attending to different Markan emphases. Two of his translations surprised me: "Lake" (Mark has thalassa, sea, consistently) of Galilee and "in the way" (en te hodo). The latter translation could be regarded as more literal, although, at least in typical American English, "in the way" sounds more like being an obstruction than being in process. The former translation is certainly less literal, but Broadhead is as consistent in his reference to the "lake" as Mark is to the thalassa, thus, and surprisingly, missing potential allusions to the "sea" and God's power over the "sea" in the Septuagint. I was also surprised by Broadhead's downplaying of the symbolic significance of the numbers twelve and seven in the two feeding stories. Although Broadhead realizes that the major difference between these two stories is where they take place, which indicates that "When the new exodus of God's people takes place, it will include both Jews and Gentiles" (p. 74), he argues that the differing numbers "do not appear to hide deep symbolism" (p. 73). Perhaps the symbolism is so obvious that it is not "deep," but twelve for Jews and seven for Gentiles is commonly thought to undergird the point that Broadhead recognizes Mark is making about Jews and Gentiles. At another point I was surprised not by downplaying of symbolic significance but by what seemed to me playing it up. Broadhead asserts that the "young man" at the empty tomb "represents the voice of an external witness" and links him with the only two other such external witnesses in the Gospelthe voice from heaven at Jesus' baptism (1:11) and the voice from the cloud at Jesus' transfiguration (9:7)all three of which provide keys to Jesus' identity (p. 136). While I admit that the message of the young man at the empty tomb is significant for the story, I am not convinced that the young man himself "completes a triad of external witnesses" (p. 138). He seems more comparable to

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Mark's only other "young man" (neaniskos) at 14:51 (also with a white garment) than to God. While no commentary can comment on every aspect of every Markan pericope, I was surprised at a couple of omissions from Broadhead's narrative commentary. He makes no reference to Jesus' sending his disciples "ahead to the other side, to Bethsaida" (6:45) while he goes up on the mountain to pray after the feeding of the 5,000. In fact, Broadhead discretely includes 6:45-46 in his section entitled "Bread in the Desert (Mark 6.32-46)," without commenting on vv. 45 or 46, before moving on to the next section, "An Appearance Scene (Mark 6.47-53)." Nor does Broadhead mention Bethsaida at its other Markan reference 8:22 (p. 75), thus being inattentive to the narrative structure of the detour (between Jesus' request that the disciples go ahead to Bethsaida at 6:45 and their arrival there with Jesus at 8:22), during which the Markan narrative further develops the theme of the inclusion of Gentiles as well as Jews, an important aspect of what Broadhead recognizes as Mark's focus on "crossing boundaries." As a final example, I found it surprising that Broadhead not only does not mention the likely oral context of the Gospel in his discussion of "the first reader" but even states that "The Gospel of Mark is not an oral presentation, . . . ." Well, I myself have experienced it in that mode on a number of occasions, and a number of scholars have argued that its first audience was literally thatan audience who listened to and observed an oral presenter. Mark's storytelling style is not picked up by Broadhead in his Markan commentary, which, unlike Mark's Gospel, relies on telling more than showingwith one delightful exception. Broadhead brings each chapter to a close with a well-written summary section entitled "The Story Thus Far." Then, after commenting on Mark's open ending, he brings his book to a close with a chapter entitled "The Story Thus Far"! Unfortunately I liked the suggestive chapter title better than the concluding chapter itself because, in his effort to tie things together neatly, Broadhead seems to oversimplify the process of interpretation. He reviews Markan "structure" as "morphology," "strategy" as "syntax," "significance" as "signification," and "meaning" as the involvement of the reader. "Significance," Broadhead states boldly, "resides in a text: it is created by the interaction of narrative elements and strategies." "Significance is the work of the text. Meaning is something altogether different. A text has meaning only when a reader takes up that text and appropriates it is some way" (p. 146). The discussion under the heading "Significance" does not clarify things for me; it presents five "signs" Broadhead regards as central to Mark. The first "sign," for example, is "the coming of the Kingdom of God"; the Gospel's "second major sign is found in its portrait of Jesus" (p. 143). Earlier Broadhead had identified these themes as "major concerns" (p. 17), terminology I can more easily understand. I had already run into difficulty with a different use of the term "sign" in the chapter on "Mark 3.7-6.6: Parables and Signs" because Broadhead uses in a positive way this term "sign" that Mark only uses negatively. Broadhead's opening chapter, which I found thoughtful and inviting, seems

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more open-ended on this point: "The most productive realm of interpretation is found in the interplay between what the text offers to the reader and what the reader brings to the text" (p. 14). I agree, but I am uncomfortable with the further assumption that one can separate the two precisely into "significance" (what the text offers) and "meaning" (what the reader brings). I have tried to be an "attentive reader" of Broadhead's commentary as he is of Mark's Gospel. I have also asked myself who is "the implied reader" of his commentary? In his Introduction, Broadhead states that his analysis "presumes an engaged reader" one who is "presumed to be able to pick up basic literary cues" and "presumed to care" (p. 15). His discussion of "the modern [not post-modern] reader" in the conclusion, however, seems to presume a Christian reader who seeks to understand what "the religion of Jesus" (p. 149) means in this age. Undergraduate and lay readers will likely appreciate the freedom from footnotes but perhaps not the frequent overlaying of abstract (formal or form critical) terms and the lack of familiar names for pericopes. Graduate students and scholars might miss the footnotes but appreciate the five-page Bibliography and Index of References. As a Markan scholar and teacher I found here much with which to agree, a number of new ideas to appreciate (e.g., the detailed comparison of the Gethsemane scene and the eschatological discourse [p. 112], the discussion of the four scenes of 15:38-47 as "Signs [perhaps not the best word] of Hope" [pp. 131-35]), as well as some surprises like those I have mentioned. What I most appreciate is the density of this brief commentaryits scholarly weight. One senses the author's years of attentively reading Markand reading others reading Markthat support this work. Such concentration has produced a concentrated volume; I feel the need to add re-readings and stir.

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