Book Description

The possibility of Mark 4:10-12 containing an ironic utterance on the part of Jesus has been considered for a long time; however, there has generally been no agreement about how to analyze the presence of irony in this or any text In fact, there has generally been no agreement about how to even define the phenomenon of irony in a text The result has often been a loose and undisciplined approach to the evaluation of irony in this passage. Recently, research into irony as a language phenomenon has been conducted outside of biblical scholarship in the fields of literary critical theory and linguistics. This research provides some tools to develop a framework with which to evaluate the probable presence of irony in a text, as well as the meaning and function of that irony. Thus, the time is ripe for tackling this problem with respect to Mark 4:10-12 in a more rigorous manner than in the past Analyzing irony in an ancient Christian text is possible because there is a connection between the current understanding of irony and irony in the ancient Greco-Roman rhetorical manuals. The phenomenon of irony was "in the air" in the ancient Greco-Roman world. Indeed, there is a strong possibility that irony is part of an innate human language faculty; but even if irony is not innate, Greco-Roman cultural influence on the Jewish people of Palestine in the first century certainly would have exposed the Jews of Palestine to irony. Either way, the many examples of irony in ancient Jewish texts show that the use of irony was quite common in the ancient Jewish world as well. Isa. 6:9-10, the passage that Jesus alludes to in Mark 4:10-12, may be one such example. The way in which most of the ancient Jewish and Christian witnesses applied the Isaiah passage suggests that they may have understood it to be ironic. The following key factors lead to the conclusion that Jesus is making the allusion to Isa. 6:9-10 in Mark 4:10-12 as an ironic statement: (1) the examples of irony in the ancient Jewish world, (2) the possibility that most ancient Jewish and Christian readers understood both Isa. 6:9-10 and Mark 4:10-12 as being ironic, (3) specific literary and linguistic features that signal the presence of irony in Mark 4:10-12, and (4) the context of Mark 4, which practically demands an ironic reading of 4:10-12. In his use of irony, Jesus was certainly not saying that his purpose for teaching in parables was to cause those outside of his circle of disciples to misunderstand his message of the kingdom of God and subsequently remain unrepentant and consequently be condemned to damnation. Rather, Jesus was pointing out that his parables, as a synecdoche of his entire ministry, implicate a call to discipleship and cause the listener to respond either positively or negatively, effectively categorizing them as insiders or outsiders. Establishing insiders and outsiders with respect to a group is, in fact, one of the main rhetorical functions of irony, and so verbal irony is the perfect rhetorical device for the point that Jesus was making.