Book Review: The Gospel of Mark

Information about the book

Amy Jill Levine. The Gospel of Mark: A Beginner's Guide to the Good News.  Abingdon Press, Nashville, 2023. Cokesbury / Amazon.  Leader's Guide

Summary

From Amazon: Walk through the Bible’s earliest source for the life of Jesus with scholar Amy-Jill Levine as she examines John the Baptizer, the Little Apocalypse, the Transfiguration, and several of Jesus's most notable stories and parables. The Good News of the gospel message comes alive in this book as readers see Jesus as divine and human, powerful and weak, approachable yet mysterious. The book features an in-depth study of select passages and illuminates the Gospel in its historical context and as a source for the other gospels.

Impressions

I have read other Amy-Jill Levine books, and I always find them eye-opening. Her thoughts and writing open new pathways for me and provide new ways to see God's word in scripture.  She describes herself as "an unorthodox member of an Orthodox synagogue..." One of the gifts she brings to her scholarship is a Jewish background. Her writing often (rightly) challenges our anti-Jewish assumptions about the scripture.

In this look at Mark, I especially appreciated how Levine brings us along through her exploration of the scripture. She is expertly searching for Mark's purposes in the Gospel and how it impacts our reading and understanding of the Word (something we should always do). She often shared multiple options for interpretation, and why each one rings true for her or not.

I highly recommend this book and will be adding other Levine books to my TBR.

Posts about book

Posts about this book are tagged with Levine Mark.

Abomination

In the book The Gospel of Mark, Amy-Jill Levine talks about Mark 13, the Little Apocalypse. 

Verse 14 says, "“But when you see the desolating sacrilege set up where it ought not to be (let the reader understand), then those in Judea must flee to the mountains;"

What is the "desolating sacrilege?"  No one really knows, but it does invite us to speculate on what would be a desolating sacrilege to us.  Levine talks about attending the Oberammergau Passion Play with friends who were involved in translating the into German the Jewish Annotated New Testament.  While on intermission, they went to a nearby Protestant church where they saw "a stained-glass window depicting the 'mockery of Jesus' with stereotypical demonic images of Jews."  She and - and even more so - her German friends were horrified. There are efforts at work to remove the window or place a notice of apology with it.

She asks the important question: "When we see an abomination, what do we do with it?"

In December, 2021, the statue of John C. Calhoun was removed from downtown Charleston, South Carolina.  He had been a statesmen and the vice president of the United States, but he was a staunch defender of slavery. Ironically, they can't find a place to display the statue, even four years later.  All plans of sending it somewhere else have been refused by the recipients.

A neighbor of ours flies both a United States flag and a Confederate battle flag. What do we do about it? I understand that he has the right to fly whatever flag he chooses in his own yard, but I can hope that he would come to see what an abomination it is. It saddens me; it infuriates me. His house is at the top of our entry way hill, so it is what greets visits when they enter the subdivision; it is what our neighbors of color see when they drive home.

When we see an abomination, what do we do with it?

 

Now and Not Yet

Years ago, when I still worked at the VA Hospital, a couple I knew, both of whom worked at the VA, was talking about the future. They were both very conservative Christians, and what they shared with me was that they didn't understand the need to save for retirement because Christ was returning soon, and they wouldn't need pensions.

On another topic, our office is undergoing renovations. The changes - paint, carpet, ceiling replacement - means that we have to pack up much that is in our offices. I had a plan. You can imagine that I have lots of books in my office. I have been consistently packing up a box or two of books each day so that when the need to have the packing done arrived, I wouldn't have to rush around, throwing items in boxes.  The problem is that our landlord came into the office last Thursday to tell us the painters had asked to start painting the next day, and my office was on the list. My careful plan was not finished, and I was not ready for this. I spent the next hour (she told us at 4:00) throwing items in boxes, and not only that, but the many of the smaller boxes I had packed had been stored on my mainly empty bookcases. They were painting the wall behind the bookcases, so all of those boxes had to be moved.  I had to pack up my files, my cabinets, etc. 

I'm reading Amy-Jill Levine's book, The Gospel of Mark. The chapter I'm reading today is about Mark 13 - the little Apocalypse. She writes, "For Jesus, the salient question in not the "when of the end-time, but the "how of living with this expectation."

Moving the question away from the return of Christ, how do we live a life with a careful plan to do the ministry to which we have been called - living a life following Christ, while at the same time being prepared for the spontaneous and unexpected surprises this kind of life will bring? How do we live in the kingdom that is now and the kingdom that is to come. It's a fine balancing act.

 

Of Justice and Blame

In the book The Gospel of Mark by Amy-Jill Levine, she spends some time writing about the beheading of John the Baptist.

To set the scene, we need to know about Herod Antipas, who was the ruler of Galilee. Also in the passage are his wife, Herodias, and his niece, Salome, who is his wife's daughter. Yes, there you catch part of the issue - Antipas was married his brother's wife, and he divorced his previous wife to do so.  John, according the Mark, has been preaching against this, implying it was incest. On top of that, word of Jesus' activity has reached Herod Antipas. Also, Josephus, an ancient historian, recounts that Herod Antipas was concerned about the popularity of John the Baptist, worried that John could lead the people to rebellion.  Let's just say the situation was complicated.

Antipas holds a party to celebrate his birthday. As part of the entertainment, Salome, who was probably about 12 years old, dances for those attending. Levine writes, "Herod Antipas and Herodias are well matched. He, inappropriately, lusts for the girl; she, inappropriately, uses the girl to achieve her own ends.  Caught in the middle is John, who loses his head.

Levine also writes, "While history tends to blame Herodias - blaming the 'evil woman' is an easy and common move - the person finally responsible for Johns' death is the tetrarch (Herod Antipas) or, in Mark's account, the king. His oaths, and the co-recliners, that is his guests, are more important than justice."

When, in our lives, do we place our reputation, our belongings, or our own plans above the work of justice? When, in our society, do we do that? And isn't it easy to blame someone else?

 

The Barrier of Fear

I'm reading the book The Gospel of Mark by Amy-Jill Levine.  Today I read her thoughts on the transfiguration in Mark (or the metamorphosis of Jesus).  If you remember the passage in Mark 9, once Peter suggests that they build three tents; which must not have been a good idea.  Verse 6 says, "He did not know what to say, for they were terrified."  Levine says that this phrase is also used when the disciples are waiting for Jesus in the Garden of Gesthemane (Mark 14:40). 

I thought about the idea of not knowing what to say because you are afraid.  It happens to us, doesn't it? What do you say at a funeral or at the bedside of a person in the hospital? We don't know what to day - we are afraid of saying the wrong thing, or making something worse than it already is. Maybe we are afraid of the situation itself. Whatever it is, we are afraid, and sometimes we don't know what to day or what to do.

Fear can be an obstacle, can't it - a barrier to doing what needs to be done. A barrier to offering words of kindness or forgiveness, to lifting someone up who needs help. A barrier to spreading the good news. Levine points out that in the last chapter of Mark, the women who come to the tomb are afraid when they find the tomb is empty.  "So they went out and fled from the tomb, for terror and amazement had seized them, and they said nothing to anyone , for they were afraid." 

The thing is, though, that we know that they eventually did tell people.  Levine says that, "fear yielded to faith and then action." Obstacles don't have to be permanent barriers to moving forward into the will of God.  Even though the suggestion of building tents wasn't a good one, Peter did respond, even with words that weren't helpful, and then he followed Jesus down the mountain.  Later Peter betrayed Jesus (out of fear), but then promised to love God's people.  The disciples were afraid in the garden, but eventually, they served Jesus. We don't have to continue in fear - we are empowered to move through it.