Introduction
As one honored to be among Adela Yarbro Collins’s first Doktorkinder, it is a great pleasure to contribute to a volume honoring her sixty-fifth birthday. I am deeply grateful for all she has taught me and the many ways she has helped me, both during our time together in Chicago and in the years since.
She has also written such an engaging and thorough commentary on the Gospel of Mark, which scholarship will be digesting for many years to come.[231] [232] In the meantime, it will remain an open question whether there will be much “new” - or in any case, worthwhile - to say about Mark. Nevertheless, it is my hope that the present paper can explore a theme to which the genre of a commentary may not readily lend itself.This paper will develop two theses. The first is that the author of Mark offers the anonymous woman who anointed Jesus’s body for burial (14:39) as a laudatory example of discipleship in contrast to the twelve apostles and, in particular, to Judas Iscariot. The second is that with the women who discover the empty tomb at the end of this Gospel (16:1-8) Mark offers a negative, rather than a positive, example of discipleship. In the latter passage the women’s failure to report the message of the resurrection offers a narrative continuation of the Twelve’s many failures earlier in Mark. Therefore, attempts by some scholars to construe the women at the end of Mark as a positive example of discipleship are mistaken.[233] It will also be argued that with the negative examples of the Twelve and, at the end of Mark, these three women, Mark offers both encouragement and an implicit warning: his audience must (re)evaluate their commitment to following Jesus prior to the imminently anticipated Parousia.[234] The title of this paper attempts to encapsulate these two main theses: “A Tale of Two Markan Characterizations: The Exemplary Woman Who Anointed Jesus’s Body for Burial (14:3-9) and the Silent Trio Who Fled the Empty Tomb (16:1-8).” I first studied these two Markan passages, among others, in the context of my current monograph project, which traces in the NT the theme of persecution and enduring suffering as a corroboration of apostolic authority and a believer’s standing as Jesus’s follower.[235] In particular, I examine claims to suffering and persecution as a form of corroboration, which several NT authors, including Mark, use to confirm authority, standing, or legitimacy inasmuch as fidelity to Jesus is demonstrated by virtue of suffering with, or for, him.
I bring to this study two prolegomena that I have argued elsewhere and cannot develop here.[236] The first is that Mark’s depiction of Jesus’s twelve disciples is overwhelmingly negative, especially in the Gospel’s middle portion (8:27-10:52) and in the passion narrative.[237] At the beginning of Mark, however, several characterizations of the Twelve are quite positive: the Twelve accept Jesus’s call to follow him (1:16-20; 2:13-14; cf.
10:28), are designated apostles (3:14), ostensibly receive the secrets of the Kingdom (cf. 4:12-13), and carry out a successful mission in Jesus’s name (6:6b-13). Yet subsequent to Mark 6:30 when the Twelve return from their mission,[238] Mark’s depiction of them is overwhelmingly negative. This shift from initially positive characterizations followed by negative depictions informs my analysis of the three women in this Gospel’s final pericopes, which likewise follow this pattern. The second prolegomenon is that in contrast to the Twelve’s usually negative example Mark highlights several minor - and usually anonymous - characters,[239] who recognize the importance of Jesus’s death and identify with his suffering. The woman who anoints Jesus’s body for burial offers a prime example of such a positively depicted minor character and, at present, receives our attention.B.