Mark as Story: Retrospect and Prospect

Abstract

The recent publication of a collection of essays that looks back to a founding text in the now widespread practice of narrative criticism (Rhoads and Michie, Mark as Story [1982]) raises questions concerning the future of literary (rather than historical) approaches to Gospel texts, and offers an opportunity to survey the current situation of such approaches. Ongoing narrative criticism, performance criticism, and postmodern criticism come under scrutiny. As always with “methodologies”, no single approach to ancient Biblical texts provides the complete answer to every interpretative possibility. The perennial challenge to some form of “objectivity” remains for some, while for others it is no longer important. New Testament literary scholarship, now some thirty years old, continues to deliver rich results, and to generate questions that both challenge interpreters and offer new insights to the many possible meanings of our Gospel narratives.