Narrative Criticism and Mark: Approaching the Gospel as Story
I am a novelist as well as a theologian. (In fact, after writing this I’m off to fulfill today’s word count goal for NaNoWriMo, National Novel Writing Month). And as a former pastor I grew accustomed to preaching the text, particularly the Gospels, in a way that blended these two loves: reading, interpreting, and then preaching the Story of God as just that, story.
So it was with great interest that I came to Mark Strauss’s new Mark commentary (ZECNT). While he approaches Mark’s retelling of the Jesus Story through an eclectic mix of methodologies, drawing from historical-critical and social-scientific approaches, he does so in large measure from narrative critical grounds. It seems to me Strauss assumes what C.S. Lewis himself observed: “the story of Christ is simply a true myth…”
Like any story, this Gospel–the entirety…