Ben C. Smith on the Original Structure of Mark

Well, it's the end of October, and I finally have time to come back to The Sword. Onward and upward!

Earlier this year I recovered the original structure of Mark and elaborated rules for doing so that anyone could use. I was thinking about attempting to publish it in an NT studies journal or present it at a conference as a number of people have been very supportive. So it was encouraging to see that someone has finally taken the time to review my proposed structure, and do so in a way that engaged with it seriously. Ben C. Smith has taken up the cudgel and produced a document that is rewarding to interact with. Ben's analysis has pointed to some fruitful new ways to understand the text. I'd like to thank Ben for this.

Ben begins:

I would like to call attention to an intriguing project on Marcan literary structure undertaken by Michael Turton, known on some discussion boards as Vorkosigan. His Historical Commentary on Mark, which in my judgment would be better named as a literary commentary on Mark, puts forward the view that Mark wrote each pericope in his gospel as a chiasm.

Actually, my Commentary began as a historical commentary, but evaluating Mark as a literary document is part of evaluating it as a "historical" one. The reason there is so much on the literary aspects is because the writer of Mark was literary artist of great skill who borrowed the conventional scenes of Greek fiction to develop one of the great texts of antiquity. I constantly found myself referring back to the literary aspects of the piece to understand its alleged historical claims.

Smith (seems cold to use a last name, so apologies) then goes to set forth my rules:

He also lists ten rules for the construction of his Marcan chiasms, which for convenience I repeat here,
though I highly recommend you read them for yourself on his site, since most of his rules come with examples:

1. The A' of the previous pericope is always the A of the next one.
2. All Markan chiasms have twinned centers. Many of the centers contain more complex ABBA, ABAB, or ABCABC structures.
3. Markan A brackets are almost always people shifting location.
4. Actions may constitute separate brackets.
5. Speeches, regardless of length, must be single brackets, so long as they are one speech directed at one audience.
6. Speeches may be broken up if there there appears to be a natural demarcation between two parts, when the audience has shifted. This typically takes place when there is a shift from an address to persons present in the narrative, to a general saying, often signaled by a formula like "Truly I say" or "But I tell you."
7. Actions plus speeches may be a bracket.
8. Actions plus speech followed by actions/descriptions are never a separate bracket.
9. Where the text "turns back on itself" — usually by way of explanation — a new bracket is indicated.
10. Where a verse involves a movement from one place to another, positing an interval of time between, a new bracket is demanded.

And then an insight.

The rules seem to group naturally into three groups, and it might be profitable to take a look at each group by itself.

Pericope seams.
Pericope bracketing.
Pericope centers.

I had never though of them as falling into three groups; indeed, I had seen them as largely provisional and the breakdown of Mark as a work in progress. Smith goes on:

Pericope seams.

Rule 1: The A² of the previous pericope is always the A¹ of the next one.
Rule 3: Marcan A brackets are almost always people shifting location.

My problem with this rule is that it appears to mask the fact that some of the A brackets are truly singular (describing only one movement) while others are actually plural (describing two or more separate movements). Take Mark 6.45-46, for example:

Immediately he made his disciples get into the boat and go before him to the other side, to Bethsaida, while he dismissed the crowd. And after he had taken leave of them he went up on the mountain to pray.

Smith notes:

Turton groups this as one A bracket, though it contains at least two distinct movements (first the disciples into the boat, then Jesus up the mountain). Contrast this example with what is perhaps a more typical seam in Mark 6.12:

Actually, the reason I group this into one A bracket is because there are not 2 but three location changes here:

Immediately he made his disciples get into the boat and go before him to the other side, to Beth-sa'ida, while he dismissed the crowd.

And after he had taken leave of them, he went up on the mountain to pray.

And when evening came, the boat was out on the sea, and he was alone on the land.

I have discussed this extensively on my blog and in the section in the commentary on the Bethsaida section, of which this pericope is traditionally scene as the first part. Some of the verses here have been interpolated and the entire section has been extensively tampered with. The reason I group these together is that thanks to the extensive redacting and re-arrangment, which in my analysis extends all the way from Mark 6:14 into Mark 11, it is now impossible to tell what the author's original A bracket was. Smith has unwittingly chosen the worst possible example -- one whose A bracket I do not believe came from Mark. This is not his fault, as you have to read my section on Bethsaida to understand that.

Nevertheless, this observation does not nullify the overall force of the rule, and we might merely regard the plural instances as less elegant transitions than the singular rather than as wholesale exceptions to the rule.

Well, there are several inelegant transitions, and they look like they have been tampered with in most cases.

Smith then goes on to say:

Pericope Bracketing
Rule 4: Actions may constitute separate brackets.

Rule 5: Speeches, regardless of length, must be single brackets, so long as they are one speech directed at one audience.
Rule 6: Speeches may be broken up if there there appears to be a natural demarcation between two parts, when the audience has shifted.
Rule 7: Actions plus speeches may be a bracket.
Rule 8: Actions plus speech followed by actions or descriptions are never a separate bracket.
Rule 9: Where the text turns back on itself, usually by way of explanation, a new bracket is indicated.
Rule 10: Where a verse involves a movement from one place to another, positing an interval of time between, a new bracket is demanded.

Rules 4-10 are bracketing guidelines: When is it permissible and when is it impermissible to jump to the next bracket? Of these rules, numbers 4 and 7 are worded loosely (with may, not must), number 6 is an exception to number 5, and number 8 essentially says that any given bracket will never sandwich speech between actions or descriptions. Number 9 tells us what to do with explanatory material (form a new bracket), and number 10 seems a logical offshoot of number 3, except that now we are merely moving to the next bracket within a pericope, not to the next pericope.

Smith goes on:

These bracketing rules seem less useful to me than the rules on the seams. I am not certain that Turton always follows them in his chiasms, or that they always can be followed.

For example, let me draw attention for a moment to rule 9, which says:

Where the text "turns back on itself" — usually by way of explanation — a new bracket is indicated.

After noting how nice my example works, Smith observes:

But do we not have much the same situation in Mark 1.16? Turton has the whole verse as a single bracket (emphasis mine):

And while he was going about by the sea of Galilee he saw Simon and Andrew the brother of Simon casting about in the sea. For they were fishers.

The for in Mark 1.16 backtracks to explain why the brothers were casting into the sea of Galilee, just as the for in Mark 5.28 backtracks to explain why the woman was touching the garments of Jesus. Why then do we not make two brackets of Mark 1.16? But to do so, of course, would spoil the symmetry, since the second half of the passage offers no such explanation for James and John as the first half offers for Simon and Andrew. Perhaps rule 9 is more Turtonian than Marcan.

Alas no, and Ben has put his finger on another rule that I have been unable to articulate.

Let's have a close look at the structure of 1:16-20. It consists of a simple ABBA chiasm.....

A
Now after John was arrested, Jesus came into Galilee, preaching the gospel of God,and saying, "The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God is at hand; repent, and believe in the gospel."

.......B..A And passing along by the Sea of Galilee, he saw Simon and Andrew the brother of Simon casting a net in the sea; for they were fishermen.

...................B And Jesus said to them, "Follow me and I will make you become fishers of men."

..........................C And immediately they left their nets and followed him.

.......B..A And going on a little farther, he saw James the son of Zeb'edee and John his brother, who were in their boat mending the nets.

...................B And immediately he called them;

..........................C and they left their father Zeb'edee in the boat with the hired servants, and followed him.

A And they went into Caper'na-um;


One of the delightful things about Markan centers is that they always have their own complex structures. Inside this ABBA chiasm is an ABCABC structure, as Smith agrees.

The reason that I did not break this out at the "For they were fisherman" is because it doesn't matter. You're not looking at a whole bracket but one part of the interior of a bracket. To wit, the actual structure looks like this:

A Now after John was arrested, Jesus came into Galilee, preaching the gospel of God,and saying, "The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God is at hand; repent, and believe in the gospel."

.....B And passing along by the Sea of Galilee, he saw Simon and Andrew the brother of Simon casting a net in the sea; for they were fishermen. And Jesus said to them, "Follow me and I will make you become fishers of men." And immediately they left their nets and followed him.

.....B And going on a little farther, he saw James the son of Zeb'edee and John his brother, who were in their boat mending the nets. And immediately he called them; and they left their father Zeb'edee in the boat with the hired servants, and followed him.

A And they went into Caper'na-um;

The sharp-eyed might note that the last verse of B and the first verse of B' are "hooked" linguistically; they both contain a reference to nets. The last verse is leaving them, and the next one is fixing them. The reason I have broken the parallels out so finely is because it shows one of the pleasures of recovering the original structure of Mark: appreciating its intricate, wheels-within-wheels structure.

But the thing is, if you use the "For...." as the beginning of a new bracket, you can make a very viable chiasm. Readers are invited to experiment. That simple-looking pericope is a masterpiece.

Furthermore, many times those brackets that belong neither to the center nor to the seam of the chiasm seem weakly connected. Let me offer Mark 11.11-27 as an example. It consists of three distinct chiasms:

^A And he went into Jerusalem, into the temple; and when he had looked around at everything, as it was already late, he went out to Bethany with the twelve. And the next day, when they had gone out of Bethany, he grew hungry.

^B1 And he saw a fig tree from afar which had leaves, and he came to see if he might find anything on it.

^C1 And he came up to it and found nothing except leaves; for it was not the season for figs.

^C2 And he answered and said to it: May no one ever eat fruit from you unto the age.

^B2 And his disciples heard him.

^A And they came to Jerusalem.

^B1 And he entered the temple and began to drive out those who sold and those who bought in the temple.

^C1 And he overturned the tables of the money-changers and the seats of those who sold pigeons.

^D1 And he would not allow any one to carry anything through the temple.

^D2 And he taught, and said to them: Is it not written: My house shall be called a house of prayer for all the nations? But you have made it a den of robbers.

^C2 And the chief priests and the scribes heard it and sought a way to destroy him.

^B2 For they feared him, because all the multitude was astonished at his teaching.

^A And when it became evening they journeyed out of the city.

^B1 And, as they were journeying along early, they saw the fig tree withered up from the roots.

^C1 And Peter was reminded and says to him: Rabbi, behold, the fig tree which you cursed has withered up.

^C2 And Jesus answered and says to them: Have the faith of God. Amen, I say to you that whoever says to this mountain: Be taken up and cast into the sea, and does not doubt in his heart, but has faith that what he says will happen, it will be so for him.

^B2 On account of this I say to you, all things, as many as you pray and ask for, have faith that you have received them, and it will be so for you. And, whenever you stand praying, forgive if you have anything against anyone, so that your father also who is in heaven may forgive you your trespasses.

^A And they come again into Jerusalem.

Now, Turton admits that he has difficulty with the first chiasm in this portion of text, and that is to his credit, for it is unclear how his first A bracket does not violate rule 10:

Where a verse involves a movement from one place to another, positing an interval of time between, a new bracket is demanded.

The A bracket in question runs as follows:

And he went into Jerusalem, into the temple; and when he had looked around at everything, as it was already late, he went out to Bethany with the twelve. And the next day, when they had gone out of Bethany, he grew hungry.

This bracket looks like two or even three in one. Into the temple in Jerusalem is the first part; out to Bethany is the second part; and from Bethany on the next day is the third part. Each of these transitions involves a movement from one place to another with some interval of time between, and therefore demands, according to rule 10, a new bracket. Yet Turton has them all in one.

Yup. I think I noted somewhere that Mark 11:1-27 was the most difficult passage in the gospel to bracket. It was the last one I finished and I have never been satisfied with it. I suspect that the tampering in here has been severe, because there are no real viable chiasms. I accept all your criticisms, Ben; in fact, I echo them. There's something very wrong with that entire sequence -- material has been gapped out, I suspect.

I for one fail to see what these two lines have so in common that they belong in corresponding brackets. If these two lines fit into the same bracket pair, virtually any two lines will fit into the same bracket pair. The process seems arbitrary at times. Here is the last pair of B brackets:

1. 
   

1. And, as they were journeying along early, they saw the fig tree withered up from the roots.
2. On account of this I say to you, all things, as many as you pray and ask for, have faith that you have received them, and it will be so for you. And, whenever you stand praying, forgive if you have anything against anyone, so that your father also who is in heaven may forgive you your trespasses.

I can see the general relationship between the withered fig tree and faith, but I cannot see why these two particular lines share in that relationship any more intrinsically than any pair of lines from this pericope. The following combinations seem just as fit to me:

1. And, as they were journeying along early, they saw the fig tree withered up from the roots.
2. And Jesus answered and says to them: Have the faith of God. Amen, I say to you that whoever says to this mountain: Be taken up and cast into the sea, and does not doubt in his heart, but has faith that what he says will happen, it will be so for him.

1. And Peter was reminded and says to him: Rabbi, behold, the fig tree which you cursed has withered up.
2. On account of this I say to you, all things, as many as you pray and ask for, believe that you have received them, and it will be so for you. And, whenever you stand praying, forgive if you have anything against anyone, so that your father also who is in heaven may forgive you your trespasses.

Both of these pairs correlate faith with the withered tree just as the original pairs do, but both of these pairs cross B with C brackets. The only purpose for these brackets appears to be connecting the seams with the center. As such, the brackets themselves look arbitrary.

Sure. That was my problem in bracketing this. Jesus speech contains two signals of new brackets, the formulaic "...I say to you." Clearly two brackets are indicated there. So that's what I did!

To be fair, there are indeed times when the corresponding brackets match almost eerily. Take Mark 3.20-31a, for instance:

^A1 And then he went into a house, and the crowd came together again, so that they could not even eat.

^B1 And when his family heard it, they went out to seize him, for people were saying: He is beside himself.

^C1 And the scribes who came down from Jerusalem said: He is possessed by Beelzebub, and by the prince of demons he casts out the demons.

^C2 And he called them to him, and said to them in parables: How can Satan cast out Satan? If a kingdom is divided against itself, that kingdom is unable to stand. And if a house is divided against itself, that house will not be able to stand. And if Satan has risen up against himself and is divided, he is not able to stand, but is coming to an end. But no one can enter the house of a strong man and plunder his goods, unless he first binds the strong man; then indeed he may plunder his house. Truly I say to you, all sins will be forgiven the sons of men, and whatever blasphemies they utter; but whoever blasphemes against the holy spirit never has forgiveness, but is guilty of an eternal sin.

^B2 Because they had said: He has an unclean spirit.

^A2 And his mother and his brothers came.

While I am a little put off by the relative brevity of C¹ as compared to the length of C², the B brackets are a fine fit; the accusation of having an unclean spirit responds to Jesus allegedly being beside himself. Furthermore, Mark had to go out of his way to create this echo, using one of his most awkward explanations after the fact (since the accusation would logically precede the long demonological speech that Jesus delivers). So there are some cases in which Mark appears to be striving for some structure akin to what Turton presents us. I am just not convinced that Mark always strives for these kinds of structures, or that Turton has completely pegged the Marcan repertoire.

I'll deny the first half of that, but cop to the second. Anyway, as I point out, though not in the page Smith used, Jesus' long speeches are usually chiasms in and of themselves. For example, this one is a very nice succession of pairs:

A casts out demons by the prince of demons
A How can satan cast out satan?
B kingdom divided against itself cannot stand
B house divided against itself cannot stand
C satan risen up against himself and is divided,
C he cannot stand, but is coming to an end
B no one can enter strong man's house plunder his goods
B unless first binds strong man, then may plunder his house
A all sins forgiven and all blasphemies
A whoever blasphemes Holy Spirit is guilty of eternal sin

Smith continues:

Let me at this juncture remind the reader of rule 5:

Speeches, regardless of length, must be single brackets, so long as they are one speech directed at one audience.

Let me also remind the reader that rule 6 allows an exception to that rule:

Speeches may be broken up if there there appears to be a natural demarcation between two parts, when the audience has shifted. This typically takes place when there is a shift from an address to persons present in the narrative, to a general saying, often signaled by a formula like "Truly I say" or "But I tell you...."

Finally, let me call attention to Mark 14.41-42:

And he came the third time and said to them: Are you still sleeping and taking your rest? It is enough; the hour has come. The son of man is betrayed into the hands of sinners.

Rise; let us be going. Behold, my betrayer is at hand.

Turton divides this monologue across two brackets, but do rules 5 and 6 allow it? There is no change of audience, is there? Both halves appear to be directed specifically at the disciples; neither is a general statement directed at the Marcan readership. There is certainly no but or truly I say to you kind of statement to mark off the new bracket for us.

It appears to me that either these two rules are poorly worded or we have a genuine exception to these two rules. Conversely, we have already seen an example of a bracket that could have been broken in two at the words truly I say to you. I refer to Mark 3.23-29, which Turton has as one bracket (emphasis mine):

And he called them to him, and said to them in parables: How can Satan cast out Satan? If a kingdom is divided against itself, that kingdom is unable to stand. And if a house is divided against itself, that house will not be able to stand. And if Satan has risen up against himself and is divided, he is not able to stand, but is coming to an end. But no one can enter the house of a strong man and plunder his goods, unless he first binds the strong man; then indeed he may plunder his house. Truly I say to you, all sins will be forgiven the sons of men, and whatever blasphemies they utter; but whoever blasphemes against the holy spirit never has forgiveness, but is guilty of an eternal sin.

While rule 6, worded permissively, allows us to divide this speech at the shift, in this case to do so would not work. Such flexibility, along with the ability to either break or reinterpret the rules, gives the impression that we could have made a chiasm work here almost no matter what was thrown at us.

These are both excellent points. Let's go back to Mark 14. It happens to be one of the first chiasms I made and is drastically in need of revision. Mea culpa! In fact the bracketing is in error, as Smith notes.

To return to Mark 3 above, it is odd that you picked that one, because I have always felt uncomfortable with that bracketing, and now you have identified why. Let's re-bracket it. My original scheme actually broke it out differently, and I simply failed to catch the "Truly I say unto you..." there. But now....

A Then he went home;

B and the crowd came together again, so that they could not even eat.

C And when his family heard it, they went out to seize him, for people were saying, "He is beside himself."

D And the scribes who came down from Jerusalem said, "He is possessed by Be-el'zebul, and by the prince of demons he casts out the demons."

DAnd he called them to him, and said to them in parables, "How can Satan cast out Satan? If a kingdom is divided against itself, that kingdom cannot stand. And if a house is divided against itself, that house will not be able to stand. And if Satan has risen up against himself and is divided, he cannot stand, but is coming to an end. But no one can enter a strong man's house and plunder his goods, unless he first binds the strong man; then indeed he may plunder his house.

C: "Truly, I say to you, all sins will be forgiven the sons of men, and whatever blasphemies they utter; but whoever blasphemes against the Holy Spirit never has forgiveness, but is guilty of an eternal sin" --

B for they had said, "He has an unclean spirit."

A And his mother and his brothers came;

That doesn't feel right either. I wonder if this pericope was trucked in from elsewhere. The scribes are coming down from Jerusalem here -- all the way to Galilee? I wonder if this is originally from Mark 10 or 11. Anyway, I'll get to work on this one. Good spot. Smith has a gift for spotting the ones that gave me trouble.

Update 09-26-2005: Mark 11.31-32 may break the rule:

And they argued with one another: If we say from heaven he will say: Why then did you not believe him? But shall we say from men? They feared the people, for all held that John was a real prophet.

The first action is arguing with one another. Then we have speech between the opponents of Jesus. Then the second action is fearing the people. (If it be argued that fearing the people is really not a separate action, but rather an explanation of the previous dialogue, then this bracket would seem to violate rule 9: When the text turns back on itself, usually by way of explanation, a new bracket is indicated.)

It isn't. By "actions" I have in mind a pretty strict definition: Speech followed by a physical action of the body.

I rather think that Turton has nailed the structure of this passage. Surely Mark intended to match the callings of the two sets of brothers point for point. But this structure is not actually a chiasm in any way, except for the fact that the seams both entail movement (into Galilee in A¹, into Capernaum in A²), and I have already indicated my approval of how Turton treats the pericope seams. But the heart and indeed greater part of the passage is utterly nonchiastic. The a-b-a-b and a-b-c-a-b-c options look very much to me like tacit admissions that Mark does not really aim for chiasms.

Naw. The pericopes are usually a simple ABCC'B'A' -- I break out the centers only for interest as there is no real need to. Consider the center of the Crucifixion scene:

F And with him they crucified two robbers, one on his right and one on his left. And those who passed by derided him, wagging their heads, and saying, "Aha! You who would destroy the temple and build it in three days, save yourself, and come down from the cross!"

F' So also the chief priests mocked him to one another with the scribes, saying, "He saved others; he cannot save himself. Let the Christ, the King of Israel, come down now from the cross, that we may see and believe." Those who were crucified with him also reviled him.

But this center is fine grained:

F And with him they crucified two robbers, one on his right and one on his left. And those who passed by derided him, wagging their heads, and saying, "Aha! You who would destroy the temple and build it in three days, save yourself, and come down from the cross!"

F' So also the chief priests mocked him to one another with the scribes, saying, "He saved others; he cannot save himself. Let the Christ, the King of Israel, come down now from the cross, that we may see and believe." Those who were crucified with him also reviled him.

It is an ABBA chiasm that goes

A: CRUCIFIED WITH HIM

B: MOCKERS

B: MOCKERS

A: CRUCIFIED WITH HIM

The fundamental issue is that things like F and F' are simply names for text divisions, which can be represented in different ways. There's no reason that you can't label this FGGF -- it would be exactly the same sequence of text divisions, but labeled differently.

The reason I don't do that is because I wish to highlight how the writer of Mark enjoys making different kinds of centers for his texts. Locating the center became, for me, an easy way to break out the chiasm. Additionally, I do believe that this is how the writer conceived the pericope, with the center at F/F' and not FGGF. This is because other centers form ABAB chiasms. Tus additional brackets cannot be arbitrarily added there.

A good example is the beating by the guards at the Sanhedrin. It has a nice rhythm.

K And the high priest tore his garments, and said, "Why do we still need witnesses? You have heard his blasphemy. What is your decision?" And they all condemned him as deserving death.

K' And some began to spit on him, and to cover his face, and to strike him, saying to him, "Prophesy!" And the guards received him with blows

This is an ABAB center:

K And the high priest tore his garments, and said, "Why do we still need witnesses? You have heard his blasphemy. What is your decision?"

And they all condemned him as deserving death.

K' And some began to spit on him, and to cover his face, and to strike him, saying to him, "Prophesy!"

And the guards received him with blows.

This kind of long-short rhythm is really common in the Markan centers. For ABBA centers the divisions I make look arbitrary. It is only when you look at the different kinds of centers that the writer uses that you can appreciate why I broke it out this way.

Smith has already accepted this ABCABC structure of 1:16-20. What about 7:1-23? It has an identical interior.

But let us run with the rules at any rate. Perhaps they apply across the board in Mark even if labelling them chiastic is not always apt.

I TOTALLY agree. An NT scholar told me that in order to gain acceptance for them I would have to find a new word, because chiasm is overlain with old prejudices, understandings, and ideas. So far I can't. Any suggestions?

Let us peruse an example of a more chiastic center in Mark 6.1-6 as Turton would have it:

^A1 And he came out thence, and he came unto his fatherland, and his disciples followed him.

^B1 And when it was sabbath he began to teach in the synagogue. And many who heard were amazed, saying:

^C1 Whence did these things come to this man, and what is this wisdom given to him and such powers done through his hands?

^D1 —

^a Is this not the carpenter, the son of Mary and brother of James and Joses and Judas and Simon? And are not his sisters here with us?

^b And they were scandalized at him.

^D2 —

^b And Jesus said to them: A prophet is not dishonored....

^a ...except in his fatherland and among his kinsmen and in his house.

^C2 And he could not do any powerful feats there except that he laid hands upon a few sick and healed them.

^B2 And he wondered on account of their unbelief.

^A2 And he was going around the villages in a circle, teaching.

Note that D¹ and D² each have two subbrackets, a and b. I want to point out that these subbrackets do have a logic to them. The a brackets have to do with family relationships; the b brackets oppose scandal with honor. These relationships seem far from arbitrary, and appear to strike at the heart of the message of this Marcan passage.

Yes, that's one reason why they look right. I fact when I reviewed Dart's book I used this pericope. However: WARNING: this baby has been tampered with, as the manuscript evidence shows.

It is only fair to note, however, that a Marcan scholar by the name of John Dart has written a book called Decoding Mark in which he analyzes the gospel chiastically and determines that Mark never has doubled centers. Here then is Mark 6.1-6 as Dart would have it:

^A1 And he came out thence, and he came unto his fatherland, and his disciples followed him. And when it was sabbath he began to teach in the synagogue. And many who heard were amazed, saying: Whence did these things come to this man, and what is this wisdom given to him....

^B1 ...and such powers done through his hands?

^C1 Is this not the carpenter, the son of Mary and brother of James and Joses and Judas and Simon? And are not his sisters here with us?

^D And they were scandalized at him.

^C2 And Jesus said to them: A prophet is not dishonored except in his fatherland and among his kinsmen and in his house.

^B2 And he could not do any powerful feats there except that he laid hands upon a few sick and healed them.

^A2 And he wondered on account of their unbelief. And he was going around the villages in a circle, teaching.

Note the rather different structure at the heart of the chiasm. I want to point out that the central brackets do have a logic to them. The D bracket is the turning point of the whole pericope; the C brackets have to do with family relationships and also oppose carpenter with prophet as the true profession of Jesus. These relationships seem far from arbitrary, and appear to strike at the heart of the message of this Marcan passage.

OK....

In other words, two chiastically incompatible systems (one with doubled centers and the other without) produce two different yet logical patterns. Of course, Turton misses the correspondence of carpenter and prophet, while Dart misses the correspondence of scandal and honor.

Actually, Dart is not a Marcan scholar but a journalist of religion. His book is excellent. However, Dart's system has several errors. First, he cannot specify any rules other than Mark's pericopes have single centers. Second, in order to make his system work, he borrows freely from Luke. Third, he often rearranges or slides over the order of the verses (mine are always in order), because he bases things on linguistic links. Each of his chiasms is different.

It is important to realize that each of our analysts must miss at least one of these correspondences, for the brute fact is that Mark has arranged these important points in two different orders at the center of his pericope. The first sequence is carpenter, family, scandal; the second sequence is prophet, honor, kin. If we were to match the elements by letter we would have a-b-c and a-c-b. Turton and Dart have both taken care to line up family and kin, but then each had to make a choice as to which of the other matching pairs was going to stay, and which was going to go.

Actually, you've put your finger on the problem. Dart's lineup is according to his tastes, mine is according to a set of rules that I generated looking at other chiasms in Mark. I didn't take care to line up family and kin; they fell out that way!

This is one of the problems I have had in discussing this, for the reader assumes that I have made the chiasms work thematically. But that is the whole point. I haven't. I deduced them from rules and worked from there. If they work thematically, so much the better. But I never took care to line up this or that word; I pay no attention to that. Only afterwards, when I look at what is there, then I can see whether there are any nice thematic line-ups. The typical respondent says to me "Look, Michael, your thematic line-ups are entirely subjective" and then turns a deaf ear when I point out that I haven't lined them up thematically.

Smith has actually missed a problem here, which is why I regard this one as particularly tentative. The fact is that while the back half of the chiasm is pretty clear, there are several ways to do the front, and I can't decide how it should be brackets. In other Markan pericopes Jesus' words often occur in the bracket immediately after the center. In this one they fall in the center, and I don't like that. So Mark 6 is problematic for me.

But hang on....

Note that not even a nonchiastic a-b-a-b or a-b-c-a-b-c center can save this anomaly. The only possible solution is to combine b and c into a single bracket and try for a pattern of a-b-a-b. But it comes out looking like so:

^a Is this not the carpenter....

^b ...the son of Mary and brother of James and Joses and Judas and Simon? And are not his sisters here with us? And they were scandalized at him.

^a And Jesus said to them: A prophet....

^b ...is not dishonored except in his fatherland and among his kinsmen and in his house.

Truly awkward, and very rough on the dialogue in ways that seem inconsistent with rules 5 and 6. Had Mark really been thinking in terms of a good chiasm he could surely have worked all this out! But he did not, leading me to suspect that he was not necessarily trying to create a chiasm, at least not of the particular variety that Turton suggests in his rules.

Oh, the writer of Mark most definitely created a chiasm here, it is just that it is non-obvious. Believe me, I spent many nights wrestling over Mark 6:1-6. The back end is solid, but the front I do not get yet. Have you read Dart's book? Dart's book is useful, but his analysis is wrong. Dart's understanding has to be judged against the fact that he accepts Secret Mark, which Carlson has recently demonstrated is a forgery by Morton Smith -- and produced what he called a Markan chiasm for it. That renders all his chiasms absurd, for Secret Mark is a forgery. My analysis, by contrast, shows that it is non-Markan in every way. Where my system can be tested, it produces solid results.

Smith then goes on to the weakest part of his argument.

It would weaken the chiastic thesis somewhat if one could apply the same or very similar rules to authors other than Mark and come up with chiastic structures.

Actually, the discovery of authentic chiasms in other texts would only strengthen my view. But never mind that, because Smith's are nothing like authentic.

In what follows I have tried to arrange passages from Josephus into chiasms. I have had to change only rule number 3, since Josephus, not writing about an itinerant preacher in particular, does not tend to connect his paragraphs with movement from one locale to the next. Rather, his connections are changes from one political event to the next, or from one crisis to the next.

Smith gives us no reason to accept his last assertion there. He asks to decide whether Josephus intended this:

^A1 But the nation of the Samaritans did not escape without tumults. The man who excited them to it was one who thought lying a thing of little consequence, and who contrived every thing so that the multitude might be pleased.

^B1 So he bid them get together upon Mount Gerizzim, which is by them looked upon as the most holy of all mountains, and assured them that, when they were come thither, he would show them those sacred vessels which were laid under that place, because Moses put them there.

^C1 So they came thither armed, and thought the discourse of the man probable; and as they abode at a certain village which was called Tirathaba they got the rest together to them, and desired to go up the mountain in a great multitude together.

^C2 But Pilate prevented their going up by seizing upon file roads with a great band of horsemen and footmen. He fell upon those that had gotten together in the village.

^B2 And when it came to an action some of them they slew, and others of them they put to flight.

^A2 And they took a great many alive, the principal of which, and also the most potent of those that fled away, Pilate ordered to be slain.

The A brackets oppose the rebel Samaritan leader with the official Roman leader, Pilate, and also enclose the whole episode in a political context. The B brackets contrast coming together with being put to flight. The C brackets are action and reaction in turn, and also center wholly around what took place at the village.

Smith than says:

I submit that this chiasm is at least as well constructed and logical as very many that Turton identifies in his study.

No, Ben, it is not like anything I have done, because you have matched it thematically and not by a set of rules that you can specify. What you did not do was study Josephus for months painstakingly reconstructing how he organized his own writing, and produced a set of rules that enable you to specify how he put together his document. In fact Smith's comparison is entirely arbitrary and subjective and has nothing to do with what I am doing. This problem right here is in fact the most serious one I face, for many would-be critics simply do not take the time to grasp that I am not working thematically. That is why criticisms like this not only miss the mark, they are not even shooting at the target. This type of criticism works much better for Dart.

For example, as far as I can see, Smith could break that passage up into many or fewer brackets. The A1 bracket could be two; so could the C2. Why did Smith do it that way? He cannot not tell us, because he himself does not know in any meaningful sense. In fact Smith has proffered a small point in my favor: my rules, when applied to non-Markan writings, produce arbitrary gibberish. Yet when applied to Mark they produce thematically-related passages that also have a nice rhythm to them.

Josephus, Antiquities 20.5.1 §97-99:

^A1 Now it came to pass while Fadus was procurator of Judea....

^B1 ...that a certain enchanter, whose name was Theudas, persuaded a great part of the people to take their effects with them and follow him to the river Jordan.

^C1 —

^a For he told them that he was a prophet, and that he would by his own command divide the river, and afford them an easy passage over it.

^b And many were deluded by his words.

^C2 —

^a However, Fadus did not permit them to make any advantage of his wild attempt, but sent a troop of horsemen out against them.

^b Falling upon them unexpectedly, he slew many of them and took many of them alive.

^B2 They also took Theudas alive, and cut off his head and carried it to Jerusalem.

^A2 This was what befell the Jews in the time of the leadership of Cuspius Fadus.

This chiasm is fascinating to me because it employs one of the two nonchiastic complex centers that Turton allows. Was Josephus as quirky as Mark?

Cuspius Fadus dominates the A brackets. Theudas occupies the B brackets, which respectively summarize his attempt and his failure. The C brackets form the center. The a subbrackets turn a prophetic act into a wild attempt. The b subbrackets turn many deluded into many slain.

Why are the A1 and B1 brackets separate here? Smith could not tell us. By the way the A1 and B1 brackets are divided, he ought to divide the A2 bracket into two brackets. Conclusion? Smith doesn't really get what is going on, because he didn't spend months painstakingly tinkering to get an understanding of how Josephus works, much less how Mark works. Smith has not used my rules at all -- there is no narrative sequence so long in Mark and thus there are no rules for decoding it.. In the Gospel of Mark speeches break up narrative, and my rules incorporate that understanding. Whatever Smith has done, it has nothing to do with what I did.

Are we tapping into the thoughts of Mark or Josephus? Or are we getting a bit too creative as literary critics? Iudicet lector; let the reader judge.

I hope the reader will judge. In fact, I hope every reader will spend some time interacting with my chiasms.

Once again, I would like to deeply thank Ben for his efforts. It is extraordinarily difficult to find anyone to seriously check this out. I especially appreciate the level of detail in Smith's analysis, and the way he zeroed in on weak spots and areas where I am uncertain. I also like it that he reviewed the rules, yet found several of them not wanting. There's still much to learn, and my structural analysis of Mark is very much a work in progress.

Thanks!

[Christianity] [chiasms]