Postmodern deconstructive discourse and the Gospel of Mark

Socio-Rhetorical Examples

Definition of postmodern discourse.

Stephen Moore vigorously enacts postmodern discourse in the mode of postmodern literary critics who perform "deconstruction" rather than the discipline of history of religions. Here is a sample:

Tolbert is surely right [that the women in Mark 15:40-41 depict a group similar to but much better than the Twelve]. But is excellence rewarded in the Marcan workplace? Mark is hardly a manifesto for equal-opportunity employment. Jesus' final message addressed to the eleven, collected by the mysterious young (mail)man and carried to the tomb or office where everything should be sorted (out), threatens to become yet another card adrift in a bag, yet another victim of a strike or a sorting accident. And thanks to whom? Mark's female postal workers? Mark has used his author-ity over these women to place them in a compromising position. His(s)tory recounts that they resigned without notice just when they were most needed (Moore 1992: 45).

Instead of creating a context in which the Gospel of Mark functions as religious text alongside other religious texts in antiquity, Moore creates a context in modern culture where people send and receive postcards. The ideological texture of Moore's discourse is allied with intellectuals in universities throughout the world who produce poststructuralist, deconstructive literary commentary as a social product. Rather than investing their time with religious phenomena in antiquity, they devote their energies to phenomena that appear in modern and postmodern media. Here the issue is the Gospel of Mark as a written text in the context of other media in the world in which we live today. What kind of medium of communication and action is the Gospel of Mark? Selecting this mode of discourse for commentary on the Gospel of Mark gives an interpreter access to very different social and economic circles of production than the theological mode Matera enacts, the social-scientific mode Malina and Rohrbaugh enact or the history of religions mode Smith enacts. Since Mack also aligns his commentary with postmodern discourse, his commentary finds an open door to some of the same social and economic circles of production of discourse as Moore's.

From V. K. Robbins, Exploring the Texture of Texts, (Valley Forge, PA: Trinity Press International, 1996), p. 110.

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