Teaching with Authority

The foundational inquiries into the relationship of miracles and Christology by Wrede, Dibelius, Bultmann and Marxsen guided a productive half-century of critical research. Their work raised crucial issues concerning the nature of the Gospels and the proper methods of interpretation that have in many ways charted the direction for New Testament studies. A new principle is now to be added to their criteria, however, that strategies of interpretation must be consciously shaped to highlight the features of narrative and its christological focus. The author then employs a consistent narrative strategy of interpretation in order to re-evaluate the relation of miracles and Christology in the Gospel of Mark. The primary goal is reconsideration of the role played by miracle stories in the characterization of Jesus. In particular, the tension posed by recent scholarship between the Jesus of the miracles and the Jesus of the cross is shown to be a false dichotomy.