From Q to ‘Secret’ Mark: a Composition History of the Earliest Narrative Theology. By Hugh M. Humphrey

Abstract

Pp. v, 170 , New York/London , T&T Clark , 2006 , £16.99 . Humphrey builds on the work of Marie-Émile Boismard and Delbert Burkett in positing an earlier version of Mark's gospel that was employed by Matthew and Luke (rather than the Q source directly) and which was different from the present canonical text; Humphrey's hypothesis is simpler and more elegant than those of his predecessors, however, and more theologically persuasive. There was no written Q, but rather ‘a stable complex of Jesus’ sayings … widely known among the early Christian churches' (p. 40). Mark was most likely an educated Alexandrian Jew familiar with the Septuagint and the Wisdom of Solomon who learned the traditions about Jesus early, perhaps in the 30's, within a decade of Jesus' death. He went to Rome and ‘interpreted’ for Peter, composing a narrative line of what he heard concerning separate incidents in Jesus' ‘words and deeds’. This text would have had a ‘low’ Christology: Jesus is the ‘Righteous One’ of Wisdom, commissioned by God and led by God's Spirit. He is the ‘teacher’ preaching reform in view of the nearness of the Kingdom and subsequent judgment by a (distinct) Son of Man. The emperor Claudius expels the Jews (and Jewish Christians) from Rome in 49; before he leaves, Mark is prevailed upon by Gentile Christians to compose a second document based on Peter's preaching against Simon Magnus, an anti-gnostic text that stresses Jesus' humanity, which becomes the passion narrative concerning his death and resurrection, interpreted as the opening of the kingdom of heaven for those who would live as he lived, a salvation now promised beyond this life. Peter sends Mark back to his home territory of Alexandria where Mark becomes the first bishop. He brings with him copies of both documents and in Egypt assimilates them to what became our canonical gospel, in the process (due to the Neronian persecution and intrafamilial betrayals) discovering the true ‘secret’ of the kingdom previously hidden: a focus on discipleship as modelled on Jesus' total self-giving and obedience to the Father, even to the point of death, which contradicts earlier Jewish anticipations and which the ‘twelve’ never understood. Mark dies in 62, before Peter in 65. Mark had simplified as well as combined his two documents; Matthew and Luke are familiar with his earlier narratives, and where they agree against (present) Mark, they are including pieces he had allowed to drop away.