This is another book that I read because it was cited in Ross Douthat’s recent and excellent Believe. After this book’s 15-page introduction, there follows the author’s new translation of Mark’s Gospel and his and verse-by-verse (more or less) commentary on it. Since there are sixteen chapters in Mark, the book is divided into sixteen chapters; I should note straightaway that the Gospel’s author Mark is regarded by Professor Pakaluk (along with many others, of course) as recounting the Apostle Peter’s recollections — hence the book’s title.
Regarding the translation, I did not parse it carefully, but it appears to be quite faithful and captures fisherman Peter’s breathless, straightforward, eyewitness account of Jesus’ ministry. As for the commentary, it is almost always thoughtful and creative. (My only caveat is that the author is Catholic and his commentary sometimes seems designed to tweak Protestants.)
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In the introduction, the author notes (xxi-xxii) that Mark/Peter keeps the focus on Jesus rather than the fisherman and, likewise, includes many of what we lawyers call “statements against interest” (i.e., incidents that make him — Peter — look bad). Peter is selective in what incidents he reports, but the fact that he doesn’t include everything is not evidence that what he does include is false or misleading. There are, the author stresses throughout, many details in the narrative that only an eyewitness would know.
The author writes (xxiv): “By trying to make the translation as much like an evocative, spoken narrative as possible, I have found it relatively easy to resolve two difficulties which confront any translator of Mark.” The first has to do with the Greek connective “kai,” generally translated “and,” which begins so many sentences that some translators delete it, but which he includes and variously treats as “and” or “so” to mimic how we speak when we tell a story. The second is to retain Mark’s tense changes, again to mimic a spoken narrative that indeed often mixes present and past tense. That resulting immediacy, by the way, reinforces the sense that all this really happened.
As to the author’s choice to follow the “literal sense” of Scripture, I loved this (xxvi): “When people used to ask Flannery O’Connor what was the meaning or message of one her stories, she would say that its meaning is what it says. Its meaning is not some philosophical proposition other than what it says.”
Toward the end of the introduction, the author summarizes: “I have been emphasizing two ideas about the Gospel of Mark, which are connected: the vividness of its narrative and its Petrine source” (xxiii).
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To give the flavor of the commentary, let me quote some passages that I especially liked.
From the introduction to the author’s commentary on chapter 7 (115-16):
From the Act of the Apostles (chapter 10 and 11:15-16), we know that Peter and the other apostles believed at first that the good news was intended for the Jewish people alone. It was only after Peter saw, among other things, the Holy Spirit poured out on Gentiles too that he recognized that the good news was intended for the entire world.
On our working assumption that Mark’s Gospel is his interpretation of the life of Christ as recounted by Peter, we interpret chapter 7 as Peter’s assembling of teachings and acts of Christ that, he saw in retrospect, revealed Jesus’ intent that the Gospel go out to all peoples, although the Jewish people wold enjoy a certain priority.
From the commentary on Mark 9:38-50 (162):
Consider, too, that sometimes writing in the ancient world was adjusted to the length of the scroll. If in a certain scroll Mark found that the two stories he planned on recording, the Transfiguration and the exorcism, took up only two-thirds of the scroll, then to make good use of expensive writing material he might well have resourcefully filled up the rest with related teachings.
From commentary on Mark 13:20 (234):
Modern scholars of the New Testament who rule out the possibility of prophecy assume that this chapter from the Gospel of Mark, with its accurate and detailed description of the destruction of Jerusalem, had to have been composed after the event. But if Mark wrote after A.D. 70 and wanted to depict Jesus as forecasting the city’s destruction, it is unlikely that he would have been so clumsy as to put the prophetic words in the past tense here.
And here is how the book ends (289):
Verses 9-19 [of Mark 16] are Mark’s work without Peter. Missing are the broad and strong pastoral purposes that govern the selection and arrangement of materials. Gone are the vivid accounts of ongoing action. We are not shown “what it was like” to be there when the resurrected Lord appeared. There are not details pointing to an eye-witness, no memorable expressions. We are given a description and a perfunctory list, in no particular order, somewhat colorless and flat.
How remarkable that the energetic, passionate, and good-hearted personality of Peter lies behind Mark’s Gospel! Through Mark’s Gospel, that personality informs the other synoptic Gospels and indeed the entire tradition about Jesus. It is certain that Jesus chose Peter in part to insure that the written tradition would take the form that it does. Reading the Gospels today, onc finds oneself under the pastoral care of that first among the apostles, Peter.
FINIS.
DEO GRATIAS.
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A few other notes on the book:
- There are favorable blurbs from three well-known political conservatives (Roger Scruton, Ryan Anderson, and Kathryn Jean Lopez); the book is published by Regnery Gateway/Salem Communications.
- The author notes that Peter’s confession “You are the Christ” to Jesus at Mark 8:29 “comes at almost exactly the midpoint of Mark’s Gospel, as eight chapters are nearly finished, and eight more are to come” (134).
- The author frequently cites St. Augustine and St. Bede.
- C.S. Lewis is quoted once (xiv-xv) and nodded to in one other spot (278). Nothing about Pascal, though.
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If you’ve decided to read Mark’s Gospel over the course of this month — see my link here — you could do a lot worse than read a half-chapter or so of this book every day. Especially if you are Catholic!