Conclusion: Discipleship and Gender in Mark

Whereas Schussler Fiorenza draws a contrast between Jesus’s male disciples and the female disciples depicted in Mark 15:40-16:8, I have argued that the similarities between these characters are considerably more striking: both groups, despite initially favorable characterizations, ultimately fail.^[276] Mark leaves neither group with grounds for boasting their superior standing relative to each other or, for that matter, anyone else.

Against Schussler Fiorenza, therefore, I side rather with Elisabeth Struthers Malbon, who argues that Jesus’s “fallible followers” - both women and men - illustrate “a twofold message” that whereas “anyone can be a follower [of Jesus], no one finds it easy.”^[277] Up to a point one can also agree with Victoria Philips that the greater failure belongs to the Twelve, who had promised to Jesus their loyalty.^[278] Yet differing with both Schussler Fiorenza (markedly) and Philips (slightly), I maintain that the failures of both groups are in proportion to their roles in Mark - whether as major or minor characters - and thus above all bind them together.

It therefore does not stand to reason, as R. T. France argues, that the appearance of these three women in the narrative “marks a remarkable shift in the Gospel’s emphasis.”^[279] Really the only thing that has changed is the characters’ gender, since the Twelve and the women at the end of Mark belong to the same group of faithless disciples. Therefore, in 15:40-16:8 the question of their gender is, from the standpoint of exegesis, irrelevant. Since the result of failure remains the same, one could in a sense regard these women as the continuation of the persona of Jesus’s male disciples, who likewise fell short.

What then shall we say about the interpretation of some scholars that these women offer a positive model of discipleship? As compared with the Twelve, the three women at the end of Mark are neither better nor worse.

Like the Twelve, they are selected for a divinely sanctioned commission, and also like the Twelve they fail. I have argued elsewhere that, generally speaking, in Mark the Twelve do not constitute a positive model of discipleship.^[280] Instead, Mark tends to hail the faithfulness of minor, usually anonymous characters in contradistinction to the Twelve. This point holds concerning the three (named) women at the end of Mark, who should be distinguished from Mark’s laudatory examples, including the anonymous woman who had already^[281] prepared Jesus’s body for burial in 14:3-9.

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Source: Ahearne-Kroll Stephen P., Holloway Paul A., Kelhoffer James A. (eds.). Women and Gender in Ancient Religions: Interdisciplinary Approaches. JCB Mohr (Paul Siebeck),2010. — 518 p.. 2010

Conclusion: Discipleship and Gender in Mark

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