Provenance and the Holy Grail of Purpose in Recent Markan Research

Abstract

Since Willi Marxsen’s break with the consensus view that the Gospel of Mark was most probably written in Rome, the question of provenance has played a crucial role in discussions of Mark’s purpose. While several researchers (most notably Dwight Peterson) have pointed out how using provenance as the hermeneutical key to Mark may involve a risk of circular reasoning, recent contributions have tied discussions of Mark’s purpose ever more tightly to the question of where the gospel was written. After outlining these recent research developments, this article argues for an alternative way of handling the question of Mark’s provenance, one that emphasizes how the major themes of Mark’s gospel touch upon longstanding issues within Second Temple Judaism, which means that a particular provenance is not needed as a hermeneutical crutch for establishing Mark’s purpose.