Narrational Texture and Pattern in Mark 15:1-16:8

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Narrational texture and pattern in Mark 15:1-16:8

Definition of narrational texture.

In Mark 15:1-16:8, only one scene (15:40-41) contains narration without attributed or reported speech. The remaining six scenes alternate narrational discourse with direct or reported speech. In the first scene (Mk 15:1-15), nine verses are entirely narration and the discourse attributes speech to Pilate five times, to Jesus twice (15:2, 4), and to the crowd three times (15:9, 12, 14). All five times Pilate speaks, he asks questions:

Are you the King of the Jews? (15:2)

Have you no answer to make? (15:4)

Do you want me to release for you the King of the Jews? (15:9)

Then what shall I do with the man whom you call the King of the Jews? (15:12)

Why, what evil has he done? (15:14)

This sequence of questions introduces a definition of Jesus as "king" that reverberates through the unit to its end. In addition, this sequence evokes a view of Pilate as an intermediary who simply asks for information and acts on the basis of that information. Viewing the questions on their own reveals two sub-scenes (15:2-5, 6-15). First, Pilate's questions to Jesus evoke alarm in Pilate when Jesus has no answer to make to charges against him. Second, Pilate's questions to the crowd evoke exasperation in Pilate when they want to crucify a man whom he has called king and who has done no evil.

Through questions, then, narrational discourse initially attributes the definition of Jesus as a king to a Roman, Pilate; not to a Jew of any kind--like a chief priest, scribe, elder, Pharisee, or Sadducee. In the context of Pilate's third articulation of the title "the King of the Jews," the Jerusalem crowd introduces the concept of crucifying Jesus. The formulation of the question in terms of "whom you call King of the Jews" is a decisive narrational feature, since no Jew or Jerusalemite has called Jesus king, yet Pilate asserts that this is the name they give him. In the context of a Roman evoking the title "King" for Jesus and the crowd's insistence that Pilate crucify him, the unit ends with narrational comment that Pilate "agreed" to carry out an action of crucifixion.

The narrational discourse in the second major scene (15:16-24) presents only one instance of attributed speech:

And they [the soldiers] began to salute him, "Hail, King of the Jews!" (15:18).

In this scene, then, a key feature is the transmission of the concept of king from Pilate to the soldiers who carry out the crucifixion. The narrative context characterizes the speech and action of the soldiers as a mockery of Jesus as a king. This sets the stage for the crucifixion as a mockery of Jesus' speech and action in the entire Gospel of Mark.

The discourse in the third scene (15:25-32) contains extended speech attributed to passersby, chief priests, and scribes which will be discussed below in the section on oral-scribal intertexture. This section perpetuates the topic of kingship first through narrational commentary:

And the inscription of the charge against him read, "The King of the Jews" (15:26).

After this commentary, direct discourse attributed to the chief priests with the scribes defines the topic of kingship from the perspective of Jewish speakers:

Let the Messiah, the King of Israel, come down from the cross, that we may see and believe. (15:32)

In the context of the narrational discourse and the speech attributed to the chief priests and scribes about Jesus and kingship, narrational discourse identifies the two men who were crucified with Jesus as bandits or revolutionaries (15:27).

The discourse in the fourth scene (15:33-39) introduces five statements, with the initial statement by Jesus providing the context for the four that come after it:

Jesus: Eloi, Eloi, lama sabachthani?
Narrator: Which means, "My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?"
Bystanders: Behold, he is calling Elijah.
Bystander: Wait, let us see whether Elijah will come to take him down.
Centurion: Truly this man was son of God.

The importance of this sequence heightens when we place it in the context of the progressive texture analyzed above. The opening of Mark 15 features Pilate asking two questions to Jesus: (a) "Are you king of the Jews?"; (b) "Have you no answer to make? See how many changes they make against you." Jesus acknowledges Pilate's statement with "You have said so" (15:2), but he makes no answer to the charges of the chief priests. This establishes a mode in which Jesus responds to no one until the scene of his death. When Jesus finally does speak, he speaks not to people but to God. The result is that bystanders mock him by either pretending or misunderstanding that Eloi refers to Elijah. All-knowing narrational commentary tells the reader that Jesus' cry means "My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?" The centurion, in contrast to the bystanders, does not respond with a misunderstanding of "Eloi" but with a perception that Jesus has a special relation to God. This establishes a sequence in the narrative as follows:

Pilate: "king of the Jews"
Soldiers: "king of the Jews"
Inscription on the Cross: "king of the Jews"
Chief Priests with Scribes: "Messiah king of Israel"
Centurion: "son of God"

The concept of "kingship" that the Roman procurator introduced in the initial scene is reconfigured to "messiahship" by officials of the Jerusalem temple. Then a Roman centurionŸ an official in charge of a hundred other soldiers and who likely had participated in the earlier mockery of Jesus as "king of the Jews" testifies that Jesus is "truly son of God." Narrational texture, then, moves us beyond titles containing the term king to the title son of God. A special topic of interest in the chapter on intertexture will be the relation of kingship to sonship of a god.

The discourse in the fifth scene (Mark 15:40-41) is entirely narration. The narration describes women looking on from afar, who have followed Jesus all the way from Galilee and ministered to him. With this move, the all-controlling narrator creates a transition from the cross to a tomb which is empty in the final scene.

The discourse in the sixth scene (Mark 15:42-46) contains reported speech in the context of narration. The narrator remains in charge by defining the day of Jesus' crucifixion and burial as the day of Preparation for the sabbath. Then the narrator defines Joseph of Arimathea as an upstanding Jewish person who expects the kingdom of God, and the narrator describes Joseph's approach to Pilate and Pilate's granting of Joseph's request to take Jesus' body down from the cross and to lay it in a tomb. In contrast to the other five scenes in Mark 5:1-16:8, the narrator does not attribute direct speech to the women, to Joseph, or to Pilate in 15:40-46. Instead of narration that allows characters to become media of direct speech, narrative voice maintains control through description and reporting. In the chapter on intertexture, we will probe more deeply into narration that attributes speech to specific characters and narration in which the narrator maintains control of the speaking voice in the narration. While analysis of narrational texture brings this phenomenon into view, analysis of intertexture creates a context for exploring its deeper meanings and meaning effects.

The discourse in the seventh scene (Mark 15:47-16:8) begins with narration. After the first three verses, however, the discourse introduces a question by the women.

"Who will roll away the stone for us from the door of the tomb?"

After two more verses of narration the discourse introduces two verses of extended speech by the young man in the tomb in a white robe:

Do not be amazed.
You seek Jesus of Nazareth, who was crucified.
He has risen; he is not here.
But go, tell the disciples and Peter
that he is going before you to Galilee.
There you will see him, as he told you.

The text ends with narrational discourse that describes the women's flight from the tomb, their amazement, and their absence of speech about it to anyone because of their fear.

In summary, the narrational texture of Mark 15:1-16:8 reveals that throughout the ordeal of his death, no one says a kind word to Jesus, nor does Jesus say anything redeeming to anyone. People impose humiliation and brutality on Jesus, and in the end he dies crying out to God and is buried by a person anticipating the kingdom of God. Only a Roman centurion recognizes the implications of the ordeal and characterizes Jesus with language that asserts a special relation of Jesus to God. Women who had accompanied Jesus from Galilee watch from a distance as Joseph of Arimathea places his corpse in a tomb. Later, when the women go to the tomb to anoint Jesus' body, they find an open tomb with a young man dressed in a white robe sitting in it. This young man tells them Jesus has risen.

From V. K. Robbins, Exploring the Texture of Texts, (Valley Forge, PA: Trinity Press International, 1996), pp. 15-18.

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