Book Review: The Theological Intentions of Mark’s Literary Devices (Dean Deppe)

It’s widely known that what we say is as important as how we say it. There is a broad difference between a genuine, “I am sorry,” and a lowly muttered “sorry” with an eye roll. The way you tell a joke makes it funny. The way you tell a story can bring out the humor or can bore people to tears. Dean Deppe has provided a massive work that focuses on the literary devices of Mark’s Gospel. How did Mark shape his Gospel? What patterns can we find, why are they there, and what do they teach us about God.

Dean Deppe is Professor of New Testament Theology at Calvin Theological Seminary concentrating on the teaching of the Gospels and Greek.

At one point in time the general scholarly community believed “Mark’s literary devices were primarily employed to build suspense and tension into the narratives” (ix). Deppe, on the other hand, believes “Mark employs the literary devices of intercalation, framework, allusionary repetition, narrative surprise, and mirroring to indicate where he wants to speak symbolically and metaphorically at two levels” (ix). To some people, to believe the Gospel authors are “speak symbolically” may seem absurd. Should we not take the words of the biblical text literally? But Deppe doesn’t mean that these events aren’t historical. Rather, they often have more levels of meaning than what we may have realized.

I will show two examples before I summarize Deppe’s book.

Example 1: “Blind” Framing

For example, in Mark 8 Jesus heals the same blind man two times. This first healing was only partial, and the second healing was a complete healing. This did happen in history. Yet according to Mark’s structure, this blind man represents the spiritual state of the disciples. Just as he needs a second touch to be healed, so do the disciples.

How is this so? 

1. At the end of Mark 7, Jesus healed a man who was deaf and mute.
2. Next the Pharisees demand a sign from Jesus (because apparently all the other signs he has given haven’t bee good enough for them). They don’t understand Jesus.
3. Then when Jesus teaches the disciples in the boat, they don’t understand Jesus at all, and they don’t know what to say. Jesus even asks them, Having eyes, do you not see [like the blind man]? Having ears do you not hear [like the deaf mute]?”
4. Next Jesus heals a blind man twice—a partial and a full healing.
5. Finally Peter confesses with his mouth that Jesus is the Christ! And yet Jesus doesn’t praise him. He strictly tells the disciples not to tell anyone.

Peter’s answer is not much different from what the demons, whom Jesus has also silenced, have been saying. They have called Jesus the Son of God, but none of them have mentioned his death. Peter rejects Jesus’ necessity to die, and so he is characterized with Satan. Peter did not understand Jesus.

This is part of a frame narrative. The “blind” (8:22–23) man is healed twice in Mark 8:22–26. Another “blind” (10:46, 49, 51) man is healed once and completely at the end of Mark 10. The first blind man is told to go home but without entering the village. No praise or amazement is given over Jesus’ miraculous healing. The man speaks no words. He is merely brought to Jesus. On the other hand, Blind Bartimaeus practically fights against the crowds to get to Jesus. He is the only person in the entire Gospel who calls Jesus the Son of David. He sees better than Jesus’ own disciples! And after he is healed, he follows Jesus.

The Way of the Lord

In between these two frames is a lengthy section on discipleship, often referred to as “the Way” section. This is because Mark refers to Jesus and the disciples being “on the way” to Jerusalem seven times. In this section Jesus tells his disciples three times that he will die and rise again. The disciples misunderstand each of those three times, and Jesus teaches them what it looks like to follow him three times in response to their misunderstandings. If this section is about discipleship, then the frame is about discipleship too. The way of the Lord means one:

1. picks up their cross (8:35),
2. dies to themselves for the sake of others (9:35),
3. and becomes a servant (10:43).

The Payoff

Many people have been befuddled over the nameless blind man’s partially healing. It isn’t that Jesus needed to heal the man’s sight and then his brain so that his brain could understand what he saw. Instead this real man represented the disciples. Otherwise why did Mark include it in his Gospel? Does this man represent us? We should rather aim to be like Bartimaeus. And follow Jesus on the way of the Lord!

In his book Deppe provides more connections between these frames, as well as more detail to Mark’s theological intentions.

Example 2: Mark’s contrast between the rich ruler and Bartimaeus:

1. Deppe notes that both men are positioned along “the way” (10:17a; 10:46) and both initiate contact with Jesus (10:17b; 10:47–48).
2. Jesus rebukes the rich man (10:18–19) but calls the blind man (10:49).
3. The rich man has “kept all these laws” but chooses not to follow Jesus (10:20); Bartimaeus comes to Jesus in faith and follows him (10:52).
4. The rich man refuses to sell his possessions (10:22), but the blind beggar gladly leaves behind his mantle (10:50).
5. Both receive a command to go (10:21, 52), but only Bartimaeus chooses to follow Jesus along the way.
6. Finally, after the rich man leaves Jesus, the disciples ask, “Who then can be saved?” (10:26). The answer to this question is answered through  the blind beggar who is saved on account of his faith (10:52). Bartimaeus walks out his faith “on the path of obedient suffering as a full-sighted disciple of Jesus in contrast with the rich inquirer and the sons of Zebedee” (171).

These are two primary examples of how Mark shapes events in his Gospel to teach us theological truths about Jesus and what it means to follow him.

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The Book’s Layout

Deppe covers Mark’s sandwiches (such as the cursing of the fig tree that surrounds his temple cleansing, ch 2), Mark’s framing techniques (like with the blind men above, ch 3), and his allusionary techniques (ch 4). These occur when Jesus makes a remark in an early part of the Gospel and then either he refers to it again later or Mark makes sure it comes about in order to draw a connection. For example, Jesus tells James and John want to sit to Jesus’ right and left in glory. Yet who (quite literally) picks up their cross and is placed to the right and left of Jesus? Mark 15:27 reads, “They crucified two criminals with him, one on his right and one on his left.” Deppe writes, “These two sayings allude to each other so that glory at the right hand is achieved through martyrdom on the cross” (227).

Although Peter declared that he will not fall away even if everyone else does, Peter, a Jewish insider, is nowhere to be found when Jesus carries his cross. Who picks up his cross but a different Peter—a Gentile with Gentile sons who, in a way, “replaces” Peter and does the job he should have done. According to Deppe, “Mark develops this allusionary repetition so that his readers will identify with the minor characters in the passion narrative and follow Jesus when self-denial and martyrdom are necessary” (248).

In chapter five Deppe dives deep into the surprises of Mark’s narrative. This has primarily to do with Mark’s addition or replacements of of “fear” throughout the narrative. In Matthew 17 there is a general consensus among scholars that after hearing the voice of God tell them to listen to Jesus, when the disciples “fell facedown and were terrified,” it was because they were in awe. It was an awe-some fear. In Mark, however, Peter spoke about building three shelters “because he did not know what to say, since they were terrified” (9:6). Deppe argues that this was a negative fear, one that provoked Peter to speak aloud his misunderstanding (to reside in the mountains and avoid this impending cross), and it was corrected by Jesus when they came down from the mountain. Deppe also surveys other surprising narrative “twists” in Mark.

Chapters six, seven, and eight cover mirroring, referring to literary devices which “mirror” or reflect the experience of the Christian community (307). In chapter six, after cautioning about how mirror reading has been misused and abused to uncover the original audience or community, Deppe illustrates how Mark “employs the absence of Jesus in various narratives to speak powerfully to a community that felt the absence of Jesus in their life experience” (307). Here Deppe looks at temporal mirroring, how Jesus’ absence in Mark reflects his abscence in the community’s life. There are three boat trips where Jesus is either sleeping (4:35–41), praying apart from the disciples (6:45–52), and with the disciples but when they have no bread (8:13–21). In Mark 9, the majority of Jesus’ disciples are unable to cast out a demon while Jesus is not with them. Jesus tells his disciples a parable about a homeowner who leaves and gives his servants responsibility over his home (13:34–36). Finally, the women at the tomb are told to declare to the disciples that Jesus will meet them in Galilee.

Deppe asks, “What situation is Mark mirroring in the narrative? since Mark 13 describes the two prominent features of the period between the resurrection and the parousia as missionary proclamation (13:9–10) and suffering discipleship in the midst of persecution (13:9, 11–13, 19–20), the fear, silence, and fleeing described in 16:8 must involve precisely these items” (333). While I think his use of “must” overstates his case, I do agree that the sudden ending to Mark’s Gospel (16:8) encourages the communities to persevere in following Christ despite their failures and sin. They should go forth in discipleship and evangelism, even when that means persecution and shame. Were the women afraid because of “the reasons mentioned in 13:9–11,” being delivered to the authorities, betrayal, hate, and death (333)? Or is this what the original communities would have felt? Is this what we feel today? I think this has a lot of explanatory power, and I need to think through it some more.

Chapters seven and eight survey geographical (7) and Jewish ceremonial ritual (8) mirroring. Geographical mirroring occurs when, for example, Jesus and crew take boat trips to both Jewish and Gentile areas, and Jesus heals an unclean Jewish women (5:25–35) and an unclean Gentile woman’s unclean daughter (who has an unclean spirit, 7:24–30). Jesus feeds 5,000 Jews and 4,000 Gentiles. Demons are cast out and Jesus’ commands to keep silent about healings are ignored in both areas. God’s kingdom, his healing, his cleansing, his eschatological feast, and his salvation are for all people. The texts on Jewish ceremonial laws and how Jesus both keeps them and sets them aside to some degree (8) reflects a new era where Gentiles who follow Jesus are considered a part of God’s people who don’t need to follow the OT law (such as those on ceremonial purity). Through Jesus, the new age has arrived where “the regulations of scripture are fulfilled through the advent of the Messiah” (460).

In chapter nine, Deppe applies the results of the previous chapters to Mark’s miracle stories. Jesus’ miracles are enacted parables. They are parables that are acted out. After surveying what the main items and people in Jesus’ parables refer to, Deppe surveys a number of Jesus’ miracles and shows how they reflect the Christian communities who read Mark’s Gospel. Through the words, actions, teaching, parables, and miracles of Jesus, Mark is teaching us about life as a church body (ecclesiology) and following Jesus (discipleship).

Recommended?

This is truly an incredible book that any serious teacher and preacher of Mark should use. You likely won’t agree with everything, but Deppe’s depth and precision will show you that there is much more going on in Mark’s Gospel than you may have thought. In fact, I would venture to say that quite a bit of what Deppe writes, pastors already apply to their churches. It might feel strange for some pastors to say that the disciples in the boat in Mark 6:47–51 represents the church because that isn’t the “literal” reading of the text. However, when they apply this chapter, they still connect it to beleivers today! And they would likely agree with all of Deppe’s other points of connection (468):

• Jesus is absent, but he is praying for us (6:46).
• Jesus sees us as we struggle; the stormy sea is like the trials and chaos in our lives (6:48);
• Jesus “passes by” us to show us his divinity—his power and compassion. He is equal to the Father (6:50)!

A good joke often has a duel-meaning, and only experience lets you understand humor’s deeper meaning.

Deppe helps you dive deeply into Mark’s Gospel, understanding more deeply what Mark intended for us to know about Jesus. Highly recommended!

Buy it from Amazon or Wipf & Stock!