According to Luke Johnson (1986), the perception of the gospel of Mark has undergone much revision during this century. Mark's narrative was early considered the least sophisticated, but later came to be seen as using both narrative and language in an extremely sophisticated way to help redefine the categories of insider and outsider in the early Christian community. The focus in this paper is to explore some of the themes in Mark, including discipleship, the temple, and the use of the term "Son of Man".
The narrative is divided into several segments. The ones of primary concern here are the journey to Jerusalem, from 8:27 10:52, Jesus in Jerusalem, from 11:1 13:37, The Passion, from 14:1 15:47, and the Empty Tomb, from 16:1 16:8 (Johnson, 1986). The three themes that characterize Mark are not all expressed in each segment of the narrative. The temple theme is part of the teaching in Jerusalem, along with the passion, although it is foreshadowed by Jesus' confrontation with the elites who represent the temple standpoint (as in 7:1 13, for example). Still, the culmination of the relationship between Jesus and his fellow Jews (and correspondingly between the Jewish community and new Christian community) begins with Jesus' entry into the temple at 11:11.
At the beginning, he merely entered the temple. This is juxtaposed with his encounter with the fig tree, which he cursed because it did not put forth fruit (11:12). After this encounter, Jesus entered the temple again and cleansed and purified it, driving out the money lenders. Immediately following this, the fig tree was seen to be withered. Looked at in juxtaposition, this seems to indicate that the temple, failing to bear proper fruit, will also be cursed and wither away. This is further reinforced by Jesus' assertion in 13:2 that the temple will be torn down.
In the passion segment of the narrative, this becomes even more clear with the death of Jesus. At th...