Was Mark Written as a Novel?

    Since the dawn of narrative criticism in Gospel studies with Rhoads and Michie's Mark As Story (Fortress, 1982), it has frequently been claimed that Mark was originally penned as a novel intended to tell how the early church felt about Jesus.  A recent study by Paul M. Fullmer, Resurrection in Mark's Literary-Historical Perspective (T & T Clark, 2007), has continued that approach.  Fullmer looks at Mark's paratactic style and asyndeton (clauses connected without conjunctions), fast-paced narrative with episodic plot development, travel motifs, and novelistic style of dialogue and rhetoric as evidence that Mark is essentially a novel.  In particular, he attempts to show that Mark's depiction of resurrection is a topos that follows the coventions of hellenistic storytelling (pp. 55-57).  Much of his argumentation tries to show that resurrection was a popular theme in hellenistic and homeric literature.  In particular, he compares Mark with Chariton's Callirhoe, written about the same time as Mark and using homeric themes of resurrection that parallel Mark's use (pp. 73-91).  He concludes that Mark follows this same hellenistic topos of bodily resurrection and afterlife.  After an extensive chapter on resurrection in prophetic and hellenistic Jewish texts (pp. 136-70), he argues that the prophetic topos combined with the hellenistic in producing the early Christian beliefs.

    It is impoortant to understand the literary philosophy of these narrative critics.  They believe first that the final form of the text is what matters (in opposition to form, tradition, and redaction criticism) and second that biblical narrative primarily exists as "art" and "poetry."  This predisposes them to neglect and often reject the historical dimension of biblical stories.  Yet does a "fictive" element in biblical stories, namely the presence of plot, setting, point of view, dialogue, and characterization really negate the historical elements of the stories?  I would argue that the theological and the historical exist side-by-side and do not negate but rather supplement each another.  In fact, in true history writing one must have a reflective side examining the significance of the event.  In biblical narratives this takes the form of theological reflection.  History has to be interpreted, and this demands that the historian involve herself in the meaning and implications of the events.  When we compare Kings and Chronicles or the four Gospels, the different perspectives demonstrate this theological interpretation of the events.  But they are still events that consciously are intended to portray and explain "what happened."

    Many scholars believe it is possible to demarcate between the historical and  the novelistic in ancient texts.  Literary critic Clarence Wallhout says the "authorial stance" is determinative: "the historian claims--asserts--that the projected world (the story) of the text together with the authorial point of view counts as a story and an interpretation of events as they actually occurred" ("Texts and Actions," The Responsibility of Hermeneutics, ed. Lundin, Thiselton, Walhout, Eerdmans, 1985, 69).  A. C. Thiselton points to "extratextual factors," namely the "illocutionary stance" of the author that creates either an imaginary world or ties the readers to the real world implied in the text (New Horizons in Hermeneutics, Zondervan, 1992, 372-73).  Finally, Kevin Vanhoozer speaks of the "generic rationality" behind a text that guides readers to the kind of work produced and makes it possible to interpret rightly the literary intentions of the text (Is There a Meaning in This Text?, Zondervan, 1998, 337-38). 

    Mark's readers can compare the events that Mark portrays to external data on the historical events that took place in the first century and evaluate the story in terms of its contribution to the historical knowledge of that period.  As one ascertains the implicit commentary and point of view of Mark, it can be seen that Mark is telling what happened and at the same time developing the significance of the events for his readers.  As I say elsewhere, "It is clear that in the historical narratives of the Scriptures, the authors believed they were retelling the historical past of Israel and the early church so as to solidify the self-conscious identity of the people in their present time.  In other words, there was a historical purpose throughout" ("Historical Narrative and Truth in the Bible" Journal of the Evangelical Theological Society 48 [2005], 684).