THE GOSPEL OF MARK AS A BOOK OF WITNESSES: FROM EYEWITNESS TO MANY WITNESSES

Abstract

Recent historical-literary study on Mark's Gospel values the place and the function of both testimony and witnesses for the transmission of oral and wriaen traditions and, consequently, the place and the function of orality culture in the first congregations of Jesus' disciples. Richard Bauckham insists on Apostle Peter's eyewitness as a filter for both preservation and mediation of the events of Jesus' life. My conviction is that it's much more profitable, for the Markan study of testimony and witnesses, to examine carefully the many witnesses present in that Gospel. I show the concept and the function of both testimony and witness in the Markan Gospel by examining their internal evidences in the laaer. I demonstrate that Markan narrative is built upon the performance of innumerable witnesses. So I suggest that the Gospel of Mark can be read as a Book of Witnesses.