"For Herod had arrested John" (Matt. 14:3): Making sense of an unresolved flashback

Abstract

In both Matthew and Mark, John's death is presented as a flashback, providing the necessary background for Herod's musings about John redivivus. Unlike Mark, however, Matthew does not return to the narrative present; the next event follows in temporal sequence not with Herod's statement but with John's death. Traditional methods of interpretation are able to explain how this narratological solecism came about. But what sense can we make of it as readers? Making use of appropriate elements of narrative and reader-response criticism, this paper will explore the possible effect of this unresolved flashback on the experience of reading.