Read the Sources

I just had one of those “O crap” moments. You know the kind I’m talking about. You stumble across something, an argument, an idea, something, that makes you think you’ve been going about it all wrong, teaching the wrong things, doing the wrong things.

In this case, the issue was, “What’s the significance of a Markan sandwich (intercalation)?” Should we read two interwoven stories as mutually interpretive? I’ve argued for years that we should, that this is the whole point.

Then I read what Adela Yarboro Collins had to say in her Mark commentary. She argues against such a practice. Citing the work of Paul Achtemeier, Collins argues that intercalation is an indication not of written, literary structure but of the oral pre-history of the text.

As such, she concludes, “Modern literary critics should then be cautious about exaggerating the degree to which the intercalated stories are intended to interpret one another” (524-525).

Gulp.

Panic was just about to set in when I got hold of myself, hopped over to the ATLA database, and retrieved a copy of the Achtemeier article from which she made her point.

The argument Achtemeier mounts relies heavily on the fact that ancient writing lacked the conventions of punctuation and grouping that we use in modern literature to convey “information about the organization and development of the content.” Indicators of orality are not simply mnemonic devices. Instead, claims Achtemeier, these are geared toward providing oral indications of how the information is structured. Oral indicators such as an inclusio would highlight for a listener a unit of thought, similar to the way in which a paragraph might function in a later written communication.

As I read through Achtemeier’s article, a sense of relief began to settle over me.

If an intercalation functions as such an oral indicator of narrative structure, this strengthens, rather than diminishes, the likelihood that the two stories comprising a Markan sandwich would be mutually-interpreting. The intercalation demonstrates that they belong to a common unit of information and should be understood and interpreted together. Far from prying the stories apart, as Collins suggests, Achtemeier’s argument urges us to hear the intercalations as audible indications of narrative unity.

Collins may be right that these are not indicators of Mark’s literary hand at work, but the end to which the intertwining of the narratives works is the same: the two stories should be read together, as mutually interpreting, as indicated by the intercalation.

The moral of the story is this: always check your sources, be they ancient or modern. Sometimes they’ll reassure you that you don’t need to panic after all. And sometimes they’ll tell you that it’s time to go berserk.