The Gospel of Mark
The most obvious corporate group in North America related to biblical interpretation is the Society of Biblical Literature, founded in 1880. In 1988, a representative membership of this society authored a commentary on the Bible entitled Harper's Bible Commentary. The editorial committee selected John R. Donahue, S.J. to write the commentary on the Gospel of Mark (Donahue 1988), and his interpretation exhibits well the ideology of this corporate group of biblical scholars. One notices a strategy of balancing "credible scholarly alternatives" against one another, with a freedom by the author himself to state his own scholarly assessment of the issue. Views that have not been sanctioned by authoritative scholarly debate do not appear in the commentary.
Donahue recounts the early church tradition that identifies the author of the second Gospel with John Mark, a companion of Peter, then asserts that this is "called into question by the apologetic desire to associate a nonapostolic Gospel with the apostle Peter, by the frequency of 'Mark' as a name in the Roman Empire, and by the ancient tendency to attribute works to important figures from the past." Patristic writers associated the final composition of the Gospel at Rome, some recent interpreters have located it in Galilee or southern Syria, and Donahue prefers its composition in the context of "a Jewish-Christian community at Rome shortly after A.D. 70" populated with people of "lower socioeconomic status" (Donahue 1988: 983-984). Donahue is concerned not to advance anti-Semitism with his interpretation. Jewish authorities may have interrogated Jesus, but the responsibility of a formal trial lies with the Romans. Pharisees do not participate in the final passion events in Mark, "so not all Jewish leaders, and certainly not the mass of Jewish people at the time of Jesus, rejected Jesus or were responsible for his death" (Donahue 1988: 1006). Abandoned by his disciples at the end, Gentiles and women are present at Jesus' death--"both outsiders in the eyes of the religious leaders, both to be the nucleus of the new community to be gathered by the risen Jesus" (Donahue 1988: 1008). This carefully crafted commentary does not venture new, "creative" views. Rather, representing the "official" stance of the corporate body of the Society of Biblical Literature, its discourse contains carefully balanced observations and judgments with a goal of representing current "accepted" scholarly opinion. Within this context, the author is free to give his own best judgments about the evidence.
From V. K. Robbins, Exploring the Texture of Texts, (Valley Forge, PA: Trinity Press International, 1996), p. 102.
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