Just heard snippets of the broadcast I mentioned in previous post. Loved bits I heard. So John Carroll is also another Frank Kermode fan! That’s surely one of the best reads on the gospel of Mark — check out Interpreting Mark like any other work of literature.
One reason I want to read Carroll’s book, The Existential Jesus, is to follow up his intriguing idea that the Gospel of John understood the Gospel of Mark and was an exposition of the mysteries coded in Mark. I can’t imagine more two totally opposite gospels so this is surely (hopefully) going to be an interesting read. (About the only thing in common that immediately hits me is their apparently less than “orthodox” provenance.)
I just know our public broadcaster the ABC is a secret front for book publishers.
Neil Godfrey
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The structural and metaphorical complexity of Mark is so easily overlooked by readers who regard it just as a rough and simple piece of work. These interesting essays drew me not only to various detailed commentaries but to a long-forgotten short 1956 lecture by the literary critic Helen Gardner, “The Poetry of St Mark”, in “The Business of Criticism” (OUP 1959). One thing we can surely say about the canonical gospels is that they provide a limitless embarrassment of riches for anti-Christian and Christian critics alike.