The Trial Narrative in the Gospel of Mark

"Progress in the scientific study of any area of human concern is due, usually, to one of two factors: the discovery of new data or the emergence of a new methodology. The discovery, publication and interpretation of both the Qumran scrolls and the texts from Nag Hammadi provide a dramatic illustration of the contribution of new data to the present excitement of New Testament research. Equally influential is the emergence and practice of the new methodology of redaction criticism. Since the mid-fifties this method has given scholars a new way of asking questions of the synoptic gospels, and a way of finding new answers to old questions. Basically redaction criticism argues from the literary activity of one of the evangelists to his theological concerns. In the case of both the Qumran scrolls and the Nag Hammadi texts as well as in the case of redaction criticism, scholarship works in continuity with the past. The discoveries emerging from Qumran and Nag Hammadi build on the previous studies of sectarian Judaism and Gnosticism in the early part of this century. So too, redaction criticism builds on the literary analysis of the synoptic gospels, in its concrete forms of source and form criticism, which has occupied scholars in the past century. In this light the present work arises as an attempt to apply a new methodology to the Marcan narrative of the trial before the Sanhedrin (Mk 14:53-65)--a section of Mark which has not been studied before from this viewpoint." --