The Disciples According to Mark: Markan Redaction in Current Debate

by C. Clifton Black

Publisher:

Eerdmans

, 2012

Overview

Redaction criticism attempts to identify biblical authors’ theological interests by examining their adaptation of sources. Focusing on representative studies of Jesus’ disciples in the Gospel of Mark, this pioneering book by C. Clifton Black has become the standard evaluation of that method’s exegetical reliability.

Comprehensively reviewing recent scholarship, Black identifies three distinctive types of redaction criticism in Markan interpretation. He demonstrates that diverse redaction-critical interpretations of the disciples in Mark have bolstered rather than controlled scholarly presuppositions to a degree that calls into question the method’s reliability for interpreting Mark. The book concludes by assessing redaction criticism’s usefulness and offering a more balanced approach to Mark’s interpretation.

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Key Features

• Identifies three distinctive types of redaction criticism in Markan interpretation
• Calls into question the reliability of redaction-critical intpretations of Mark
• Discusses the usefulness of redaction criticism

Contents

• Redaction Criticism of the Gospel of Mark: A Selective Review of Its Disciplinary Bases, Precursors, and Methodological Explication
• Mark’s Presentation of the Disciples and Discipleship: A Selective Review of Redaction-Critical Research
• Type I: The ‘Conservative’ Position of Robert P. Meye
• Type II: The ‘Mediate’ Position of Ernest Best
• Type III: The ‘Liberal’ Position of Theodore J. Weeden, Sr
• The Three Types Collated: A Comparison and Contrast of the Perspective, Method, and Results of Meye, Best, and Weeden
• The Rehabilitation of the Redaction-Critical Method?
• Method in Markan Study: Appraisal and Proposal

Praise for the Print Edition

A brilliant and necessary critique . . . It shows the potential of studying the history of research in order to challenge and redraw the contours of biblical criticism.

—Theological Book Review

As a whole, this study is a tribute to its author’s remarkable capacity to engage in sustained, penetrating critique . . . [Black’s] dissection is accomplished with a measured evenhandedness.

—Catholic Biblical Quarterly

Black’s trenchant critique of one aspect of recent scholarship on the New Testament is sobering, but it should stimulate discussion on what it is that we aim to accomplish.

—Catholic Biblical Quarterly

Product Details

• Title: The Disciples according to Mark: Markan Redaction in Current Debate
• Author: C. Clifton Black
• Edition: Second Edition
• Publisher: Eerdmans
• Print Publication Date: 2012
• Logos Release Date: 2014
• Pages: 421
• Era: era:contemporary
• Language: English
• Resources: 1
• Format: Digital › Logos Research Edition
• Subjects: Bible. N.T. Mark › Criticism, Redaction; Apostles
• ISBNs: 9780802827982, 0802827985
• Resource ID: LLS:DSCPLSCCRDNGMRK
• Resource Type: Monograph
• Metadata Last Updated: 2025-01-16T19:09:53Z

About C. Clifton Black

C. Clifton Black, Princeton Theological Seminary’s Otto A. Piper Professor of Biblical Theology, earned his M.Div. from Emory University and his Ph.D. from Duke University. He is interested in New Testament exegesis, theology, and the history of scriptural interpretation, with a focus on the four Gospels. He regularly teaches such varied courses as biblical theology and the practice of ministry, prayer in the New Testament, the Gospel of Mark, major themes in New Testament theology, the biblical and Shakespearean visions, and the parables of Jesus. An ordained United Methodist minister, he serves with John T. Carroll and M. Eugene Boring as editor of The New Testament Library, published by Westminster John Knox Press. Black is also an associate editor of The Catholic Biblical Quarterly and Horizons in Biblical Theology, and a member of The Center of Theological Inquiry in Princeton and The American Theological Society.