Описание: The Gospel of Mark has dramatic features, but it is clearly not a stageable play. What is its genre and why did Mark choose this literary style? Independent scholar Danila Oder makes a new proposal: Mark wrote, directed, and starred in a performed play. He wrote the Gospel text we have as the literary, condensed version, to preserve the experience of the single performance of the play.
The full-length play was in the genre of mime. It incorporated the Passion, Marks earlier tragedy. The Gospel play was performed 90-95 CE in Rome, produced by Marks patron, Flavia Domitilla, a niece of the Emperor Domitian and the mother of future emperors. The audience in a private theater was Flavias congregation of the Jesus movement (she also donated to them the Catacombs of Domitilla). The extravagant and unprecedented promise of eternal fame to the woman in Bethany is explained as flattery of Flavia: she came onstage to buy the oil, and anoint the Jesus actor during the play.
In The Two Gospels of Mark: Performance and d104, Oder takes the pragmatic point of view of a director and stage manager. She closely analyzes the text of the Gospel to reveal the many theatrical elements of the underlying performed play. Assuming that Mark was a skilled playwright, many scenes are reconstructed, including a spectacular ascension scene that ended the play. Many editorial additions to Marks literary text are identified and removed. Appendix E provides a summary of the action of the proposed reconstructed play.
Oder discusses the fate of the Gospel in the second century, and how the Roman churchs promotion of the historical Jesus of Nazareth erased Marks real identity. She does not discuss Marks doctrine/religious beliefs about Jesus or Christ.
By locating the Gospel of Mark in a specific time and place and written for a specific patron and purpose, The Two Gospels of Mark initiates a new paradigm for the history of early Christianity/proto-Christianity. It is written for scholars and advanced amateurs comfortable with Jesus mythicism and familiar with the Gospel of Mark. It is also of interest to historians of ancient theater. The book is 216 pages, including discursive footnotes, endnotes, bibliography, and index.
