Sunday, November 13, 2005

My SBL Paper

I have uploaded a first draft of my SBL paper:

The Rock on Rocky Ground: Matthew, Mark and Peter as Skandalon [PDF]

It's for the Matthew section, Sunday 20th at 1 p.m. It is all about the way that Matthew reads Mark, and the way that we read Matthew and Mark. I attempt to offer a little narrative-critical corrective to an overuse of redaction-criticism in Matthew's characterization of Peter. And I suggest that the key to understanding Matthew's characterization of Peter is to see that he is narrativizing the well-known claim in early Christianity that the crucified Christ was a skandalon to Jews (1 Cor. 1.23).

As always at this point, there is more work to be done on it before next week, but I wanted to get something up earlier rather than later to provide an opportunity for comments, which will be gratefully received.

Update (Tuesday, 17.45): second draft now uploaded, with some minor corrections and some additional bibliography. With some kind help, I managed to get most of my boxes of books opened yesterday and dug out a few things I'd wanted to re-read on the topic, with more of the same still to come.

Update (Thursday, 00.47): Third draft uploaded, with some additions and clarifications, and a little more bibliography.

Update (13 June 2006, 1.43): paper removed; it has been revised and submitted for publication.

4 comments:

  1. Mark, One quick item. Do you present Monday or Sunday? The 20th is Sunday.

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  2. Whit -- thanks for that. I meant Sunday 20th and have made the adjustment.

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  3. Mark, A couple of more - on page 2 line 8, you have "reading he text"

    I love, "Intead of the Rock, he is the Stumbling Block." Rest assured that this will wind up in a sermon some day - with proper credit given to you!

    As regards footnote 2 - the Episcopal Church lectionary divides this reading over two weeks. We hear first of Peter's triumph and then his failure. We read Matthew 16:13-20 one week and Matthew 16:21-27 the next.

    Wish I could be there to hear you present this paper.

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  4. "Intead of the Rock, he is the Stumbling Block

    But even better than this is the implied contrast between rock and rocky ground (from the sower parable) (see p 12).

    That's a very convincing paper, Mark. It almost appears too obvious -- I think it would be if we had no gospel of Mark with which to hyper-contrast the relevant passages. Have fun presenting!

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